[This is a rough draft of a commentary on The Process of Democratization -- hopefully an improved version will get published. This is basically a chapter and paragraph by paragraph commentary on the work. Anyone interested in a modern update of the topics discussed by Lukcás well, I hope, find it useful. Excerpts have been published on my Facebook page and on that of the CCDS-- Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism]
Lukács begins his work on The Process of Democratization with some preliminary methodological remarks the first of which is: ‘’The most significant moment of Marxism is its monumental reduction of historical development to a succession of class struggles’’ which takes the form of a continuous struggle between the rulers and oppressed under the systems of slavery, feudalism, and, capitalism. This warfare, Marx and Engels, say in the Communist Manifesto: ‘’everywhere ends with a revolutionary reorganization of the entire society, or with the mutual destruction of the contending classes.’’ That last part hasn’t been stressed but the first part is a fundamental pillar of Marxism. Marxists look for common features and characteristics to be found between historical events in different types of societies. Non Marxists, and especially bourgeois thinkers, tend to treat events as historically unique.
Nevertheless, influenced by the natural sciences, they take as universal social realities forms of the state and social forces at work. Lukács says that Marxists are concerned with the particular features of these categories of political theory more than their universal aspects. This will have a tremendous influence on praxis.
Aristotle and Rousseau are mentioned as models used by many thinkers who thought of democracy in universal terms. The debate initiated by the Russian Revolution of ‘’democracy versus totalitarianism’’ has been framed as contrasts between universal and particular interpretations of these concepts. The universal is ‘’deterministic’’ since it seeks to formulate social laws working across particular examples and this results in unresolvable theoretical contradictions. Lukács says this is an unMarxian approach.
Classical Marxism has no problem in discovering general laws at work in particular instances and they won’t upset universalist views which would seem to contradict them. Praxis can only take place in concrete historical instances of reality, therefore the particular and the universal form an ‘’individual unity.’’ A good example of this is to be found in a work by Marx, used by non Marxists to mistakenly try and prove the opposite, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, where the particular events of the 1848 revolutions are used to justify universalist conclusions— ie., that societal superstructures including democracy, have similar origins and ontological status. This is the basis on which Lukåcs will discuss democracy and totalitarianism. It is wrong to think of ‘’democracy’’ as a one size fits all essence — ‘’dehistorization creates negative fetishes.’’ Democracy is really a process which evolves in different historical contexts, therefore Lukács prefers the term ‘’democratization.’’
PART ONE: BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY AS A FALSE ALTERNATIVE FOR THE REFORM OF SOCIALISM
CHAPTER 1— Democracy and Its Various Economic Variations
1.1 All political theorists prior to Marx, beginning with Aristotle, failed to grasp ‘the thing-in-it- self’ — the actual process of development of politics in a given economic formation because they confined themselves to abstractions about the difference forms of democracy without realizing that all forms of democracy belong to the social superstructure which rests upon, and is conditioned by, the economic base which supports it.
1.2 ‘’ Marx was the first to proceed from the elementary facts of social life.’’ He discusses the original form of democracy in the West, the polis, but always in terms of the economic base of the societies that produced it, an agricultural society of private property owners who were collectively citizens of the polis, or other forms of commune, Here the good of the private property owner and the good of the commune coinsided. The economic well being of the citizen in the superstructure was linked to the economic base.
1.3 This is the democracy of Athens and Rome. As they developed they became dependent on slavery and the basis of the economic supremacy of the polis fell apart as did this form of democracy. The wealth of the empire depended on the labor of slaves, an exploited majority, compared to the free citizens whose private farms were now also worked by slaves.
1.4 The polis was a primitive form of democracy. Some of the first human societies were based on clans and tribes and owning property was conditioned by the rules of the clan or tribe. This was the basis behind the polis which was an advance and created the concept of ‘citizen.’ Besides clan and/or tribal identity an individual could acquire private property as a
citizen of a state and this forms the background of the first primitive democracies we find in Ancient Greece and later in Rome. As these civilizations advanced the connection between ownership of property based on clan and tribal rules weakened and ended.
1.5 Lukács now jumps ahead to ‘’the great French Revolution which represents the classical form of modern bourgeois democracy.’’ The two central themes of this democracy are ‘’freedom and equality.’’ These two themes are conditioned by the economic base of bourgeois [capitalist] society and how exchange value is exchanged is the foundation of both freedom and equality.
1.6 The species being of humanity is objectively based on human sociality and the importance of the French Revolution is that, for the first time, this species being entered into objective historical existence with real freedom and democracy when the masses tore down the feudal state and liberated themselves from a system based ’natural’ characteristics [nobility of birth] by one based universal rights attuned to our species being. This was the first approach as the masses, the people were the Third Estate before they became differentiated as bourgeoisie, proletarians, and peasants. This iteration of freedom and democracy ended up as bourgeois democracy and the peasants and workers ended up as junior partners in the Revolution.
1.7 ‘’The French Revolution radically destroys this entire feudal structure and in so doing reveals for the first time in history in purely sociological terms the actual relation between the state and civil society.’’ [The existence of the slave states prevented the American Revolution from doing this.] Another first was that Reason now was seen as the best guide to social planning.
1.8 However, ‘Reason’ turned out to be an ideological construct of bourgeois thinking in the superstructure— a reflection of the world as seen through the class interests of the bourgeoisie. It was thus a form of Idealism. The actual relations of the workers as creators of surplus value in the economic machinery of the capitalist base was material reality, not an ideological construct. There is a real contradiction between the bourgeois worldview and the material realty it purports to understand. The ideas of the State and politics run up against the material realty of bourgeois economics.
1.9 We can understand this better by studying the constitutions and laws created by the Revolution. We have on the one hand the ‘citizen’— an ideal entity basically— all equal before the law and without any particular status, wealth, or occupation. On the other hand there are real people living in bourgeois society. Lukács contrasts citoyen with homme.
Every person is both a citizen and a human. The Revolution is carried out in the defense of human rights. Citizenship is a status based on human rights. Marx says this ‘’degrades’’ the notion of citizen because human rights favor the actual legal private rights of individuals existing on the material reality of bourgeois private property over the ideal rights of citizens [equality before the law]. It is illegal for rich and poor alike to panhandle in the streets of Paris. This is a basic contradiction within bourgeois democracy.
1.10 Now we come to recognize that at this time bourgeois democracy has reached the apex in the development of the species nature of humans (cooperative socialization) brought about by capitalism— there is only one more step to go to reach socialism/communism to fulfill our species nature. Human freedom and dignity is approached in a fragmented and contradictory manner under bourgeois democracy and Lukács calls this ‘’the fundamental social reality of capitalism.’’
1.11 In this last paragraph of Chapter One Lukács deals with the relation of the Greek polis with bourgeois democracy. The leaders of the French Revolution were inspired by the examples of the Roman Republic the democratic city states of Ancient Greece. They didn’t really understand the social basis of these early democratic systems but Marx thought their user as models was necessary to summon up the heroic courage and energy needed by the leaders of the Revolution in order carry out the great tasks before them. The ‘’luminous symbol of the polis’’ was held up to inspire them and even to help them deceive themselves about the limits of their new found bourgeois democracy. The truth was the economic base that upheld the property holders of the ancient property holders had little to nothing in common with bourgeois economic relations. The ancient polis cannot be a model for today.’’The social being of bourgeois life, the world of commodity trade, finds its political expression in the superstructure of the modern capitalist state.’’
CHAPTER 2 The Necessary Developmental Tendencies of Bourgeois Democratization
2.1 Lukács will now discuss the contradictions that arise between the material reality of bourgeois [middle class] society and the ideal conceptions of the state. Think of the Pledge’s ‘’…with liberty and justice for all’’ and the impunity which the police often have in killing minority folk and others.
2.2 We are all familiar with the way many of the rich and ruling bourgeoisie politicians and capitalists treat the legal system— they try to break or get around the laws and regulations whenever they can benefit by doing so but expect ordinary citizens and working people to obey all of them.
2.3 This should not surprise us as the state is used in every class society by the ruling class to benefit itself at the expense of the exploited masses. It helps if the masses think it’s ‘’their’’ state too. What is going on is this. Because every social/economic formation is in constant change and development and experiencing progressive and reactionary contradictory motions in both the base and the superstructure, the superstructure is stressed out to conform itself so that the economic and wealth producing well being of the base is preserved for the ruling class. This means the ideals of the state ideology, say democracy, when they have to be, and will be, transgressed in order to serve the interests of the base. This will be reflected in the behavior of both public and private individuals and in social movements .
Marxists have to see what’s going on in the base to explain this.
2.4 Bourgeois democracy has proven to be the best system for controlling the masses by the ruling class. This is because the masses are convinced that this system provides them with the greatest degree of ‘’freedom’’ and ‘’democracy.’’ Lukács points out that the essence of capitalism (commodity exchange on a market) is manifested by capitalists being free to buy and sell and decide for themselves how to dispose of their assets. The masses live in a society with this economic base and in the superstructure this sets the limits of their concepts of freedom and democracy, I.e., to have money (jobs) to buy things and sell, and choices on how they can spend, or save. I don’t care about Rockefeller as long as I’m ok.
2.5 As far as the advanced capitalist countries are concerned the bourgeoisie rules through advanced liberal parliamentarianism. In times of crisis, socially or politically, it is possible for ‘plebeian’ parliaments to take over [populism such as MAGA in the U.S.] In the past the ruling class has intervened to ensure that its powers are not threatened until the more liberal form of rule is reestablished.
CHAPTER 3 Bourgeois Democracy Today
3.1 When we speak about freedom and the Free World we are talking about those societies in which the inner essence of their being is controlled by a capitalist economy and ruling class. Capitalism has taken many outward forms over the last few centuries and today the most prominent form is bourgeois democracy, but Lukács points out: “the fundamental structure of capitalism has not changed.”
3.2 Many idealistic forms of democracy are bandied about by bourgeois ideologs to confuse people about the workings of democracy even going back to Rome and Greece, All this is done to try and convince people that democracy is the best system and better than any type of socialist alternative. But the only real forms of bourgeois democracy we get are the actually existing forms we have with Biden, Trump, Modi, Netanyahu and their likes. Lukács insists “we find it necessary to point out the absolutely existential priority of the present as distinct from a desirable and attractive past.’’ We should keep this in mind when he comments about the actually existing socialism of his day as well.
3.3.1 This paragraph explains the origins of the theory of ‘’the embourgeoisement of the proletariat.’’ Contemporary social science views the nineteenth century as a battle ground of ideologies that has now been overcome in favor of a pluralistic liberal capitalism that is the only political alternative to the totalitarian duo of fascism and communism. The success of liberal capitalism has neutered the proletariat as a revolutionary force which now aspires to attain a bourgeois middle class lifestyle and has obviated the theory of surplus value. This view is even more entrenched since the victory of the West over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. This theory cannot, however, account for the rise of China as a non capitalist state as the old models of ‘’totalitarianism’’ (Hitler/Stalin) do not fit contemporary China despite the best efforts of the MSM and bourgeois academics.
3.3.2 Even though it’s been sixty years since Lukács discussed the role of US imperialism, nothing has in fact essentially changed. The class struggle is ignored in discussions of foreign policy, the social democratic parties and some communist parties have turned their backs on revolutionary Marxism and socialism is virtually ignored in their praxis. This is because they want to participate in and be part of the capitalist ruling political formations. The US and its allies in and outside of NATO talk about ‘’freedom’’ and ‘’democracy’’ but this does not ‘’hide the continuity of western imperialism as shown in the cases of Santo Domingo, Indonesia, and Vietnam.’’ Today we would say Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, and Gaza. Al these are examples of US inspired and supported neocolonial wars. And this is only the tip of the imperialist iceberg.
3.4. Lukács wants to show the human consequences of capitalism, the most advanced form of exploitative class society as compared to previous less developed forms. To do this he presents Marx’s idea of the ‘’species being’’ of human beings as proposed in his Theses on Feuerbach. Feuerbach thinks there is a human essence that all human beings share qua being human— a materialist version of a Platonic idea. This can be true in a ‘’natural’’ sense that the human species qua animal has a common biological basis in DNA but when it comes to humans as language users and bearers of culture there is no such common essence shared by, for example, an ancient Egyptian and a modern person, or people of different cultures. The real ‘’species being’’ of humans is ‘’the ensemble of social relations’’ they grow up in and this was something Feuerbach was unaware of.
3.5 So how do different humans gain their actual ‘’essence’’ as species being? “The becoming of man to his social essence, his real species being, takes place in the historical process.”
3.6. It is the emergence of humans out of a purely animal existence into an existence demarcated by social relationships that the species being of humans gradually develops— it is this second nature of humans as social beings that is their ’species being.’’ “Capitalism carries out this process in the economic sphere and through the economic to the totality of society.’’
3.7 Capitalism has developed this socialization of the human species being to its highest level yet it has failed to complete the process as it is the source of the major contradiction plaguing humanity— the exploitation of the masses by a ruling class living off of the surplus value they expropriate from the masses of the productive workers creating and consolidating the wealth of society. The elimination of this parasitic capitalist class is necessary for humanity to fully realize its species being.
3.8. Lukács gives a couple of pungent examples of what he means by quoting Hobbes on how humans treat each other under the existing system: “homo homini lupus.’’ While the Marquis de Sade may seem to be a bit extreme in seeing women as inferior sex objects that exist for the control and pleasure of men, he is not that far off base in the actual way women have been treated historically (and still are in various degrees throughout.the world). Marriage is one way to enforce this control. Kant was a highly educated product of modern society and this was his definition of marriage: “a contract between two people of the opposite sexes for the exclusive possession of their sex organs for a lifetime.” Kant remained a bachelor. His definition, more honored in the breach, at least implies equality. The opposite sexes requirement is outmoded in some parts of the world.
3.9 Marx determined in the 19th century that the categories of ‘’possession’’ and ‘’private property’’ that characterize capitalism and are responsible for the alienation of the mass of humanity from its true species being which has in the 20th century become a general problem. Lukács had hoped the world socialist system would be the solution to the problem of alienation but the collapse of the Soviet system has left behind the illusion that the best system is capitalism. Lukåcs saw that “capitalism is not a transcendence” with regard to overcoming human alienation but rather a system that intensifies it.
3.10 How does capitalism relate to “democracy”? Every class system produces an ideology to defend its ruling class. Capitalism’s ideology is based on the concept of “freedom” which it sells to the masses to make them think they live in the freest possible society. Everyone can participate in society, can freely vote for whom they want, etc., just as they can freely buy which ever products that want in a store. But the store controls the choices available so the customer has only the semblance of freedom. The same is true of voting and elections. The ruling class determines the choices available and there no freedom to overthrow the system by means of an election although such an illusion is inculcated within the population.
3.11 Capitalism also perpetuates concepts of extreme individualism and egoism. Bourgeois materialism is the “dominate ethos.” This is not philosophical materialism but rather a desire for things, possessions, and material wealth. “Freedom” and “equality”: are actually ideals but they are trumped by bourgeoisie materialism. “What matters is the clear perception of the universality of this penetration by the egoistic materialism of bourgeois society into this ideal sphere of freedom and equality.’’ The ethos of the economic struggle in capitalism is every man [person] for himself and the Devil take the hindmost.
3.12. What is important to note is “the ideal forms of freedom and equality are never called into question.” At least this was the case when Lukács was writing. The US is the leader of the “free world” and we have free elections and all votes are equal— despite millions of dollars from special interests that can derail an election the dogma of free and fair elections was never questioned here in the US until the time of president Trump (even with segregation and gerrymandering the official line was that we stood for free elections). Recently one of the two “official” parties has claimed the 2020 general election was ‘rigged.’ This indicates that the national consensus controlled by the ruling class is beginning to breakdown.
3.13 The bourgeois fetish of freedom is further discussed. It is pointed out the more actual freedoms and rights are diminished under capitalism the more the ideals of the same are praised and we are told how they thrive in our diminished actual experience of them. Does anyone really believe the CIA exists to champion freedom and equally American style or to actually overthrow where possible any democracy or freedom struggle that threatens the interests of American capitalist enterprises? The history of the USA itself shows us whoever “pursues the historical development of capitalist society knows that the power of elected public bodies continuously declines in comparison to its military and civilian bureaucrats working under ‘official secrecy’.”
3.14. Lukács suggests we compare the relation of the armed forces to democracy in the French Revolution to that of the Third Republic to understand how anti-democratic organizations such as the CIA come about. It’s a natural evolution as capitalism consolidates itself.
3.15 Not much has changed in the US since Lukács wrote this paragraph. He notes the beginning of a capitalist crisis in the country and that the opposition to the capitalist government is not well organized nor ideologically mature and the left forces are derided by critics on this account, Lukács thinks this is wrong. Before the Left can become a major force it has to make itself ideologically clear and present an appealing mass program. To criticize the Left for failing to do this is unhistorical as it doesn’t take into consideration the obstacles faced by the Left in the U.S. Well, this is 60 years later and the Left is basically in the same situation faced with the duopoly of political power controlled by the ruling the class. It was the response to Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement then which the ruling class was manipulating, today is the super oversized military budget, the Black Lives Matter movement, the wars waged by NATO in various areas, and Israeli settler imperialism in the middle-east. The situation is worse today as the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War has taken “socialism” off of the agenda, at least for the time being until the Left gets its act together. There are some encouraging signs in this direction.
3.16. The major theoretical question dealt with in this section is moot, but I can be updated for today. That question is:”is bourgeois democracy a real alternative for the socialist world as many inside that world believe?” The socialist world here is Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Well, bourgeois democracy in one form or another has replaced “socialism” in that world. Lukács did not live to see this but he was sure the answer was NO! What was his reasoning? “The following simple and direct political statement may be made: if a state, has been led into a social crisis by Stalinist epigones, converts to the alternative of bourgeois democracy one could predict the future with a high degree of probability without being a prophet. Before long the CIA would make this state into another Greece.” Basically this is what has happened, but let’s say something about the “CIA” and “Greece” The “CIA” is just a stand in term for “US imperialism” which is the terminology mostly used today. Greece was a country which after WWII had civil war led by Communists (1946-49) which was defeated by the capitalist government. So, rather than a socialist government bourgeois democracy was developed (a constitutional monarchy) was maintained. The civil war was over in 1949 and the US imperialism has supported the ant-Communist forces, By 1952 Greece was incorporated in NATO the US imperialist military alliance against the USSR and its allies.A military coup overthrew the government in 1967 and instituted a fascist military dictatorship, All this was going on while Lukács was writing his book. This is why Lukács thought “to look upon bourgeois democracy as a possible alternative during times of crisis in a socialist state. Implies a Greek outcome.” Today we see all the former “socialist” states in Eastern either in NATO or applying for membership and serving the interests not of their own people but US imperialism supporting a fascist coup in Ukraine and provoking war with Russia, invading and overthrowing other governments (n Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya) trying to overthrow them (Syria, Afghanistan) and while none of them have had fascist military dictatorships, they are subject, in one way or another, to US imperialism and its program to militarily prepare for major confrontations with China in the east and to prolong the Zionist military expansion in the Middle East, and the proxy war with Russia in the west. So much for Part One “Bourgeois Democracy as a False Alternative for the Reform of Socialism.” We will now look at Part Two “The Pure Alternative: Stalinism or Socialist Democracy’’ [chapters 4 through 7.]
PART TWO: THE PURE ALTERNATIVE: STALINISM OR SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY
Chapter Four: Theoretic and Historical Presuppositions of a Concrete Problem
4.1 Experience has shown that when bourgeois democracy has been used either to reform or replace socialist democracy socialism has been overthrown and often democracy as well. To understand this we need to have a concrete knowledge of the reality of what was called “socialism” in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
4.2. The crisis in socialist democracy that broke out in the international communist movement in 1956 was related to the internal structures of socialism as it was developed in the USSR and eastern Europe under Stalin. We will not understand the significance of the 20th Congress of the Soviet Party without understanding this background.
4.3. At this congress serious problems in the way the Soviet Union was functioning were attributed to Stalin who was accused of fostering a ‘’cult of personality.’’ However to blame serious internal problems in the Soviet Union on one person
seems to be an over simplification. Lukács points out that it was Palmiro Togliatti who rejected blaming the problems of the internal developments of Soviet socialism “upon the personal characteristics of Stalin.” He demanded a dialectical materialist study of the entire Stalinist period be made and both the good and bad points be discussed and analyzed. In 1968, when writing this, Lukács complained such a study had yet to be made. Whatever these problems were they were deeply rooted and led to the collapse of the entire system 35 years later. Even today, almost two generations on, the “question of Stalin’’ and his role is still an enigma. The Chinese came up with a mechanical formula for dealing with Stalin— 30% bad, 70% good. Others reverse these percentages (the US prefers 100% bad! and diehards cling to 100% good!)
4.4 Lukács does not claim his book is ‘’a definitive scientific analysis of the Stalin period.” What Togliatti wanted was for us to begin to discuss what had gone wrong and how a sick socialism could be restored to health. All that is moot today but Lukács work is still important, both historically, and to help in avoiding similar errors in any future socialist construction.
4.5. First things first . Originally Marx thought the Revolution would come to power in the most advanced capitalist countries and they would be the models for the less developed countries. Russia, therefore, “”was not a ‘classical embodiment’ of such a world historical transition.’’ Lenin understood this and discussed it in Left-Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder.
Lenin thought the Revolution had come to power in Russia but that Russia was not the prototype for the advanced countries. He thought a revolution would break out in an advanced capitalist state (France, Germany) and it would be the prototype and would help backward Russia finish its transition.
4.6 This was an economic problem. The transition that socialism would face. In Russia the major problem was the relation between agriculture and heavy industry; unsolved contradictions not faced in advanced capitalism. The transition to socialism would take place after all the major problems of production had been solved by advanced capitalism and the transition could be done smoothly as far as purely economic problems were concerned. In a backward country with a primitive level of capitalist production the transition would be problematic with lots of unsolved economic issues. “Capitalism in the Russian Empire was still underdeveloped and left many economic questions unresolved.” The root of all the future problems of democracy. Just as, in the advanced USA all the problems of racism and democracy go back to the economic failures of Black Reconstruction after the civil war, as pointed out by W. E. B. DuBois.
4.7. This does not mean the October Revolution was a mistake. World War I brought about an existential crisis in the Russian Empire and the entire system broke down: disease, famine , revolts, mutinies were widespread and the Czar was forced out and the February bourgeois democratic Revolution took place. The new government, however did not address the basic cause of the widespread starvation and breakdown of the social order in the country. That cause was the continued participation of Russia in the World War. The Bolsheviks promised to end the war and restore order under the slogans of Peace, Land (for the peasants), Bread These slogans won over the masses and the October Revolution led to the establishment of Soviet Russia led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. This Revolution was a historical necessity to end the suffering of, and survival of, the masses of the former Russian Empire.
4.8. Besides the war there was another problem that bourgeois democracy could not solve, and that was the problem of peasants and land redistribution — millions of serfs emancipated by the end of serfdom in the 19th century were landless and were a poverty stricken underclass in imperial Russia. This was similar to the lack of land redistribution to the emancipated slaves in the US after the Civil War which also created a poverty stricken underclass which still exists under US bourgeois democracy. Only socialism can solve this problem. In Russia “without the fall of the bourgeois-democratic system a real solution of the peasant problem .1.was impossible, as is the problem of the Black underclass in the US. In Russia in October 1917 “the ruling classes could no longer govern in the old manner and the oppressed and exploited masses refused to continue to live in the old way (Lenin’s definition of a revolutionary situation).” History forced the Revolution as it had in France in 1789.
4.9 Nevertheless, the in-itself of the non-classical nature ofThe the economic level of Russia’s transition period had to be faced.The proletariat and revolutionary peasants showed their determination to make their revolution succeed by heroically fighting against the intervention of 21 different capitalist nations and fighting a grueling icivil war against the White armies seeking to restore the ancien régime. It was after the Civil War “that the economic problems inherent in the nonclassical form of transition to socialism became the focus of Soviet life.”
4.10. The Bolsheviks were on their own as Lenin admitted this was a problem Marx hadn’t really considered. In 1922 Lenin said the most important problem to face was an alliance between the peasants and the new socialist economy the Bolsheviks wanted to build or at least start on.
4.11 A major problem facing the workers was that they had been an exploited class told what to do by the capitalists and now they had seized the means of production and had to run the economy themselves. The Civil War had also destroyed the traditional relations between the towns and the peasants. We can’t have the workers and peasants at loggerheads! History can’t be left on its own anymore, humans will have to guide it. The working class will have to run society. Marx: “the Educator must himself be educated.”— Third Thesis on Feuerbach.
4.12 Based on his readings on freedom and necessity in the third volume of Capital, Lenin, according to Lukács, was the only one of Marx’s successors to realize what was “the central problem of socialist transition.” It was that “socialist democracy” was the only way that humans could self educate themselves in order to create the new society. Marx’s “realm of necessity” [the economy] was the basis of the new society coming into existence, “the realm of freedom” but this freedom could not come about by utopian schemes based on reason alone, nor would it be the result of a mechanical materialist view that it would automatically result from economic social production. The workers would be self educating themselves through the praxis of social construction where they could freely experience the results of their plans to improve socialism on the road to communism. Socialist democracy would allow them to freely discuss and learn from their mistakes and how to correct them — it would keep their eyes on the prize. This was the basis of Lenin’s political actions. How did this go off track?
4.13 Lenin was faced with the following problem in Russia. The ‘Kingdom of Freedom’ could not be attained with the ‘Kingdom of Necessity’ actually existing (economy too primitive). An ‘intermediate period’ had to exist between the coming to power of the Revolution and an advanced economy that could be the basis for freedom. What would this period be like re socialist democracy? Hopefully an advanced nation would have a revolution, become the socialist vanguard, and then help Russia—but if not—then what.
4.14 There was a theoretical vacuum created and not even Lenin had a clear grasp of what was to be done in this situation. Praxis would be experimental. An answer in Marx and Engels could not be found on how to correlate the development of socialist democracy with a backward economy that wasn’t ready for socialism. The Kingdom of Necessity is qualitatively different from the Kingdom of Freedom. If freedom is the recognition of necessity, necessity wasn’t ready to recognize freedom. Where there’s a will there’s a way isn’t always the case. In Lukács’ philosophical dialectic this is expressed as:”The ontological leap announces itself in the fact that in socialism the foundation of economic praxis must be directed by conscious teleology toward producing a society of universal human interdependence.” The base’s in-itself was out of sync with the superstructure’s for-itself.
4.15 As capitalism is abandoned the entire economy will move from socialism to communism and society will be run under the direction of a conscious teleology. It is important to note that this teleology will be “a human subjective-conscious design for the species self-determination of social development.” The Kingdom of Freedom treats humanity as an end in-itself. The Kingdom of Necessity is objective, not subjective, with respect to the laws governing material reproduction for the benefit of humanity.There isn no triumph of the will or great leap forward that can bypass the in-itself of the natural order. The scientific laws of social production are, under capitalism, used to benefit private interests and the bulk of humanity suffers as a result. Under socialism these laws will be directed to the benefit of all of humanity. Lukács actually says under capitalism this “is at best a remote possibility.” Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will— Romain Rolland (1866-1944)
4.16 Lenin strongly believed this Kingdom of Liberty could still possibly be reached if the backwardness of Russia could be overcome but only with the alliance of two different classes which agreed that overcoming backwardness was the precondition for any progressive future for the country. There was no purely economic solution without the subjective cooperation building a socialist order would require— “communitarian experimentation” as the basis of praxis. Lenin “perceived the shatt4ering of the alliance between proletariat and peasant as the central danger of the crisis of the transition.”
4.17 Although Lenin was too ill to effectively concretize the New Economic Policy himself his ultimate goal was for the two revolutionary classes, then proletariat and secondarily the peasantry, to work together to build a society that provided mutual benefits on the road to socialism. Regardless of success or failure Lukács maintains that Lenin’s methodology is still valid for any kind of socialist construction. “Lenin approved conscious intervention into reality.” Through praxis and experimentation humans would become aware of the correct way to guide social development. Lenin was fond of the great Napoleon’s observation about reality:’’One engages it and can direct it.” Waterloo and the Cultural Revolution may be counterexamples but the principle is sound. Lenin, of course, was thinking about the future of centralized planning.
4.18 The Working Class As Barometer—during his last years Lenin fought against identifying central planing with socialism and he tried to prevent the growth of bureaucracy. He gaged the revolutionary potential of the workers and their socialist aspirations by the level of their day by day living and their political activity with respect to the vital questions of the day. The Barometer in Lenin’s day was reading capital R for revolution. Today in the West, especially the US with its tiny union movement and the workers following the Republicans and Democrats and some independent forces or having just dropped out of political activity, the Barometer is barely reading a small r for reform. Be that as it may, the vital concern of Lenin was to prevent the Soviet workers from being stifled by bureaucracy. The Civil War had demanded bureaucratic centralism in order to be victoriously waged, but the war being over, the party was still using this method to get things done. Trotsky even wanted to nationalize the labor unions and put them under state control as a worker’s state didn’t need independent unions.
Lenin did not agree. He said what they had was a “worker state with bureaucratic aberrations.’’ In this case it was still necessary for the workers to have some protection from their own state! Some independent worker’s organizations were warranted.
4.19 Participation of the Masses in Building Socialism—Lukács refers to State and Revolution where Lenin says socialism won’t be imposed from above but will come about when the masses in their everyday lives as well as their values and understanding of the meaning of life have habituated themselves to the’’ rules of social cooperation” which are the same now as in ancient times and known to the masses when they have to work together in the common interests. They will do this themselves in the building of socialism without being told how to by higher ups and “without the apparatus of domination called the State.” This is real socialist democracy as advocated by Lenin. Those faux Communist “leaders” who maintain that bourgeois democracy, especially the US style, is what we must struggle for and support Is what Lenin had in mind are just spreading revisionist perversions of Lenin’ ideas. Lukács points out that in SR “socialist democracy is the direct opposite of bourgeois democracy.” Democratic attitudes have to penetrate all aspects of life under socialism. Only in extreme cases should “secrets” be kept from the general public. This last sentence is problematic and Lukács says he will take this up later in his book.
4.20 Habituation is a universal concept applicable to any society. Under capitalism the ruling class uses it to train the population to adopt the values of economic egoism and individual personal interests as the motivation for action. For Lenin it became a “social-teleological process” to train people to work together collectively. This seems to contradict the horizontal process of working class self education in favor of vertical involvement reminiscent of State agency. But this is a dialectical process of the Communist Party as the leading vanguard of the revolution and the necessity of vertical direction of a victorious revolution and the initial first stages of socialism which increasing evolves in a horizontal direction with a corresponding diminution of verticality. We must also remember that Marx held that bourgeois law still functioned in the period of socialism and would only disappear in the higher state of communism. We should also note that no actual historical State has ever reached the state of socialism let alone communism and while there are some states proceeding along the Road to Socialism others ran off the road or found themselves at a dead end. Despite the fact that bourgeois Right still functions in socialism there is a qualitative difference between the habituation precess in capitalist and social society. Socialism creates the preconditions for communism and Lukåcs says “In communist society it is possible to set forth a conscious teleological design for a future life and to use this design for the qualitative transformation of actual existence.” Meanwhile, just remember you can’t put forth the same position twice as new events are always unfolding.
4.21 Communist Saturday— Part of Lenin’s dialectics of habitation was to enable people to transcend the past and create a future suitable for the prospering human species being. This could only be done in conjunction with building a socialist economy. Lenin wanted to avoid and prevent the development of any powerful bureaucracy in Soviet Union. This was because the inner tendency of any bureaucracy was “routinization” and the consequent domination of the past over the present. This was the opposite of Lenin’s desire for the present to dominate the past. Communist Saturdays had come about by revolutionary workers going to work on Saturdays on their own initiative and engaging in social production without pay. There was. Nothing about the economy in the Soviet Union that Lenin felt was “specifically communist” until the workers took it into their own hands to create unpaid Saturday labor to support the Revolution and the building a of a new society. Bureaucratic “planning” would co-op the communist essence of this worker’s movement and, as Lukács points out, under such planning “these social expressions become mechanical, mere cogs in the assembly line of bureaucratic hegemony.”
4.22 Lenin’s views were both praised and condemned. They reveal his basic commitment to socialist humanism but he was also a realist and the young USSR was in dire economic conditions. Praxis had to take reality into consideration not vice versa. Lenin died before the the USSR was economically secure and so he could not influence its future development but there is no doubt his socialist humanist views would have been more influential had he lived.
4.23 Vulgarizing Theories of Social Democracy— Lukács points out that Lenin always stresses the differences between real Marxist positions and the perversions (revisions) introduced by social democrats and others that falsified Marx’s (and later Lenin’s) views. The social democrats, Lukács says, held the question of democracy under socialism was moot as with the abolition of the state (its withering away) democracy would no longer be relevant. Lenin’s views on this issue re the transition period, have been “forgotten.’’) Lukács says this is because Stalin had different views and these were the ones adopted and subsequently read back into Lenin. Both the West and the USSR in the Stalin era traced Stalin’s praxis back to Lenin’s and claimed continuity— the West blame Lenin for all the negative features it claimed the USSR was responsible for, Stalin’s supporters to prove that Stalin was a true follower of Lenin. Both sides held that Lenin = Stalin. The USSR proclaimed the official philosophy of Communism (Dialectical Materialism) was “”Marxism-Leninism.” Lukács wants to reclaim what he says is Lenin’s real position and he maintains a correct understanding of Marxism will ‘’show that Stalidistorted the tradition of Lenin.’’
4.24 Nothing New Exists in History— We have seen in the discussion on ‘’habituation” that Lenin believed the human rules behind ‘’collaboration and cooperation” have a long historical development from primitive and ancient times to today. But it is only under socialism that they can fully function as universal principles for social behavior. The relation between revolution and social evolution is this: when ‘historic leaps” take place the previous social relations pointing in a universal human direction are advanced and qualitatively change society in a progressive way. The socialist revolution is the last link in this evolutionary chain of human advancement to full species being. The positive elements from the past are sublated in the present and this is what is meant by ’’nothing new exists in history”— nothing pops out of nowhere with no past. Lukács gives a quote from Lenin that sums this up— unfortunately the translator as left out a word that changes the entire meaning— this must have been an accident—I have added the word in capital letters: “Marxism gained its world historical significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat owing to the fact that it did NOT reject the achievements of the bourgeois era , but on the contrary, adopted it and comes to terms with all the values of two thousand years in the development of human thought and culture.” Here is an original source for this quote: [Marxism has won its historic significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the contrary, assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than two thousand years of the development of human thought and culture. Lenin’s Collected Works 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, , Volume 31 pages 316-317 Translated Julius Katzer].
4.25 This view of Lenin’s is a middle way between two extremes current in his day (and beyond) on how Marxism should be applied to culture. The first view was that there should be a radical break with the past which only represented the views of now defunct ruling classes and a radically new proletarian culture should be created uncontaminated by the past. The second view held that the practices of the past should simply be modified to serve proletarian interests but in no way radically changed. Of course these views are both un-dialectical and Lenin’s position — the unity of opposites, in which the old and the new are sublated by the negation of the negation and a unique proletarian culture is created which is the logical synthesis of the best of the past with that of the present results as a further development of a continuous history of civilization from ancient times to the present day. Lukács will return to this subject in later chapters.
4.26 Chapter Conclusion— Lenin did not leave behind an “infallible” solution to the problems of building socialism and there was no such solution ready at hand in the works of Marx and Engels. It’s a waste of time debating what Lenin would have done or not done and since the Russian Revolution was “non-classical” from a Marxist point of view-(i.e., not occurring in an advanced capitalist society) we can’t know if the objective possibilities even existed for it to be successful in developing socialism, we only know that in the long run it failed. What we do know, according to Lukács, is that after Lenin’s death his followers lost sight of his basic philosophical views and this gradually led to a distortion not only of his views, but also of those of Marx and Engels themselves which were the foundations of Lenin’s. This was the result of the pragmatic necessity imposed on Soviet praxis by unforeseen circumstances resulting from the non-classical nature of the revolution.
STALIN’S VICTORY OVER HIS RIVALS
5.1 Lukács points out that the period after Lenin’s death ushered in a struggle between the various Soviet leaders to see who would be his successor. Historians are frustrated because most of the documentary evidence has nor been preserved. Stalin was the eventual winner and the opposition’s arguments against him were not preserved in official Soviet sources. Likewise the arguments favoring Stalin were not preserved by the various groups opposing him. In sum, “What has been published by the opponents of Stalin suffers from the same flaws as the official Stalinist version.” One of the most respected opponents, whose works are a major source for those interested in Stalin’s rise to power and the struggle with Trotsky,
Is Isaac Deutscher who is almost universally cited by scholars. But even he, Lukács says, “is not free from a tendentious and biased distortion of the facts.” Lukács lived through this period of time and followed its ups and downs with keen interest but, he says his views are not the result of “exhaustive objective research.” The lack of preserved evidence may make this impossible— even now, after the fall of the USSR and the opening of the archives the problem persists—is all the archival information available, has it been tampered with by the anti-communist present day rulers of Russia? Lukács will try his best to explain what happened during the time in question but admits his account is of an “impressionist character.” Nevertheless it is of great value as it the view of one of the greatest Marxist philosophers of the last century who was loyal to the principles of Leninism and hoped to provides ideas that would preserve and renew the revolutionary socialist tradition of the Soviet Union and its founder. Whether his views are moot or relevant is up to reader to decide.
5.2 Lenin’;s “Last Will and Testament”— this document is, Lukács says, “an expression of an extremely far reaching despair.” Lenin expresses his opinions of the six men who, after his death, will form the central leadership responsible for the future development of the Soviet Union. Hho nice it would be if they could be a collective leadership working together in the common interest of building socialism. But, as it turned out, one of the six ended up killing the other five. So, who were these six men and what was Lenin’s opinion of them?
1. Lev Kamenev (1883-1936)
2. Grigory Zinoviev (1883-1936)
Lenin thought they were flawed in their analytical abilities.Both were shot but later rehabilitated.
3. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
Lenin thought he would definitely pose a danger to the Soviet future. Assassinated in Mexico.
4. Georgy Pyatekov (1890-1937)
Lenin also thought he would pose a direct threat to the Soviet future. Shot but later rehabilitated
5. Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
Lenin thought Stalin was a lesser danger than the latter two and should be removed as party leader.
6. Nicholai Bukharin (1888-1938)
He was the only one who could do any real theoretical work but Lenin didn’t think he really understood Marx. Shot but later rehabilitated (1988)
5.3 Lenin’s long term socialist vision lost sight of— After Lenin’s death all sorts of plans to build socialism were circulated by his immediate successors. Lenin’s democratic ideals were lost in the scuffle as everyone thought the backwardness of Russia demanded a praxis devoted to rapid industrialization, the problems of democracy would have to wait. The Soviet leaders spent all their time arguing about the tactics to achieve this. But tactics only make sense if they are geared to a specific strategy which must always be kept in mind. Lenin’s long term historical strategy was to create a humanistic and democratic socialism which would lead to communism. None of his successors had the depth of vision that Lenin possessed. The praxis they engaged in proposed the strategic of goal of industrialization and which tactics would best achieve this— Lenin’s strategic goal was not on the agenda. This was not a deliberate act of ignoring Lenin but the result of the historical period in which the revolution found itself and that Lenin was a qualitatively greater leader than any subsequent Russian leader up to our own time.
5.4 Day to day praxis replaces theory as guideline— The exigencies of the daily struggle to maintain the revolution were justified by claiming that they were part of Marxist theory. Tactical justifications slowly replaced the theoretical positions that had motivated the actions of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. By the 1930s, “Stalin and his gneration had lost contact with the true message of Marx and Lenin.” Marxist theory in Russia
was a form of revisionist thinking that reflected the Zeitgeist as it appeared in the USSR. Lukács divides the the history of Marxism into three divisions: 1) The original theoretical positions of the founders—1) Marx, Engels, and later Lenin, 2) the First Revisionist break initiated by Bernstein and Kautsky which is the background of the social democratic parties of today— a distortion of Marxism to accommodate working with bourgeois parties on reform policies and renouncing revolutionary tactics and strategy either de jure, de facto, or both, 3) a second revisionist break occurred under the Stalin leadership of the world communist movement when the original socialist democratic humanism of the founders was de facto abandoned and “was no longer the spiritual foundation of tactical decisions,” This was not seen at the time but has only become common knowledge in historical retrospect— the owl Minerva, after all, only takes flight at dusk.
5.5. Stalinism not a simple “contrivance”— it “sprang immediately out of the real situation in which the revolutionary worker’s movement found itself and was always mired in the immediate.”
5.6 Stalin emerges as Lenin’s successor— Trotsky was a great leader during the early days of the revolution and was the leader of the Red Army during the civil war he defeated the counter-revolutionary White armies and saved the Bolsheviks and Soviet Russia from defeat. But in peacetime in the period after Lenin’s death he revealed himself completely incapable of being Lenin’s successor as he was completely inept in devising correct revolutionary tactics to further the revolution. Stalin, on the other hand, was “a clever, calculating, superior tactician” and appeared to be the man for the job. Lukács believes that in order to achieve his (historically necessary) tactical advances in the maintenance of Soviet power the true strategic goals of Lenin were distorted and dropped out of the consciousness of the Bolshevik leaders. Stalin’s position became enshrined in the line of revolutionary thinkers Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin. While Stalin was a great tactician, he was not on the same level as Lenin with regard to theory and has been dropped from the line of succession as only the Marx, Engels, Lenin line is universally accepted by all Communists— although some groups, and parties add a third or fourth name after Lenin’s to invoke sectarian issues relating to their programs.
5.7 “Yet Stalin himself was nothing more than an extremely adroit subtle tactician.”
5.8 Lenin’s foremost project—alliance of workers and peasants—Lenin did not think the revolution could survive without this alliance. Nevertheless, the economic conditions in Russia afer bathe civil war required compromises. Industry had to be developed. The New Economic Policy was devised as a temporary measure the lay down the basis for the industrial development of Russia, as in China sixty years later, capitalist markets were to be developed under the control of the Communist Party and the construction of socialism would have to be postponed until Russia had the economic wherewithal all to begin its construction. Lenin intended that the NEP would work with the worker-peasant alliance to improve the socialist prospects of both classes. The NEP took a different direction, however, after Lenin’s death. The urgency of industrialization was obvious (fascism was on the rise). The Left wing of the Bolsheviks, led by Trotsky and Yevgeni Preobrashensky (1886-1937,Shot) advocated “original socialist accumulation”. Under this program the country would be regimented and the peasants would be exploited by the working class in order to get the surplus value needed to industrialize. The peasants didn’t go for this as they would get the really short end of the stick. The party rejected this program as too extreme. The Right wing of the party came up with a different and slower approach. Bukharin put forth the slogan “Enrich Yourself!” ( a premonition of Deng Xaioping) and advocated letting the peasants engage in capitalist markets for their agricultural products while the state encouraged light industry producing consumer goods and services for the population to encourage their economic development—heavy industry would also be supported by the exploitation of the peasants but not in a heavy handed way that would endanger the worker-peasant alliance. If Trotsky’s pourrage was too hot, Bukharin’s was too cold and Stalin tactically out maneuvered both of them, their factions were isolated, and Stalin was left in command of the party. Once he was in control he realized that Trotsky’s position wasn’t so bad after all and he implemented his own version of “original socialist accumulation.”
5.9 Socialism in one country?—Before 1921 Lenin held the orthodox view that socialism could only come about with the fall of advanced capitalist countries (or at least one) but due to “uneven development” the first socialist revolution occurred in Russia. But this was just the beginning, soon the revolution would spread to the advanced countries and they would help the Russian revolution to move on to the socialism. Somewhat similar as to how Cuba was helped to survive by the Soviet Union in the face of US imperialism.However, after 1921 it became obvious the revolutionary wave had passed and the Russian revolution was alone when it came to economic development. The historic problem that Russia faced, was, Lukács points out, could it be possible “for Russia to both retain the victory of socialism in one country and to produce by itself the industrial base necessary for the construction of socialism?”
5.10 How to solve the problems facing Russia led to contentious and hostile debates amongst Lenin’s followers and resulted in a loss of focus on the long term end of creating a socialist humanist form of socialism. Economics became the most important subject of debate and it was finally decided that they should create a Soviet state dictatorship of the proletariat based on state ownership of the means of production. As a result the actual soviets fell into the background and a party-state emerged. Only two roads appeared as possible to construct “socialism in one country.’’ Road One— since the revolution in the West was kaput it had to be started up again and rushed to completion, OR Road Two, the party had to take the development of an industrial base into its own hands and force a rapid development regardless “of the human cost to the population.” Trotsky pushed for the first road which just wasn’t feasible historically at the time and his disruptions regarding the choice of the second road had to be dealt with. Stalin became the leader of the wing of the party backing road two, took control of he party and, controlling all the means of education and news in the country, set about the necessary industrial development and his methods became taught as orthodox Leninism and ‘’Marxism-Leninism” became the official version of Marxism and Stalin the true successor to Lenin. Perhaps it had to be done, but important features of Lenin;’s thought became distorted and pushed aside in the mobilization of the party and the people for the industrialization of the country. Lukács wants now [in the 1960s and 70s] to revitalize the lost heritage of Lenin.
5.11 Khrushchev denounces Stalin but continues his theoretical program—In Stalin’s view the future of the USSR was dependent on the construction of socialism in one country and thus concentrating on economic development at all costs— economy first and foremost began as a tactic for Soviet praxis but as time went on it became a strategic theoretical end in itself. It even deluded Stalin himself who began to think it was possible to transition into communism in one country only. Any opposition to Stalin’s praxis became seen as a betrayal of the ideals of communism and was treasonous re the Soviet state. After Stalin’s death the new leadership under Khrushchev realized that the state had gone overboard in repressing contrary thinking and criticism of certain aspects of the party’s praxis and the blame for this was shifted to Stalin and his “personality cult.” The “thaw’’ set in and Soviet society began to open up and become less repressive e dissident voices as long as socialism itself was not attacked. But Khrushchev and the party still kept the idea that the goal was primarily economic development at all costs. Lukács concludes that “Khrushchev remained imprisoned within Stalinism, because he made socialism and communism synonymous with economic productivity and did not allow the theory of socialist democratization to enter the debate.” This distortion of Lenin’s views thus continued.
5.12 In this last paragraph of chapter five Lukács briefly comments on the struggle waged by Stalin to become the numero uno leader of the USSR. He does not got into detail but remarks that Stalin and Bukharin allied to oppose and isolate the Trotsky-Zinoviev-Kamenev faction and after that was accomplished Stalin and his allies then eliminated Bukharin from the leadership. Stalin won out because his tactical abilities were superior to those of his opponents but Lukács doesn’t think any of them carried on Lenin’s theoretical program for the building of socialism as they all neglected Marxist theory for opportunistic temporary goals of praxis and treated these as theoretical aims rather than emergency temporary measures based on the backward conditions in the USSR. “Some people cling to the illusion that Trotsky and Bukharin were better equipped than Stalin to lead Russia on the path of socialist construction.” In reality non of Stalin’s rivals "had a fundamental Marxist-Leninist program which corresponded to the real circumstances.” But neither did Stalin. He was able to use his position as leader to create the myth that he was true heir of Lenin. This myth has remained alive in some elements of the international communist movement even after Stalin’s death and this has “prevented an accurate historical description of the concrete genesis of this struggle for power between Stalin, Trotsky and Bukharin.” These words were written over half a century ago. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and opening of most of the archives of the Soviet government more tangible evidence has become available to judge the correctness of Lukács’ analysis.
STALIN’S METHOD
6.1 Lukács has previously pointed out the basis of Stalin’s method was TACTICS rather than STRATEGY. This was not something peculiar to Stalin. In one form or another this was the main praxis of most, if not all, the socialist movements at the time. It was the result of the socialists reacting to the bourgeois praxis of Realpolitik. This was especially true of the socialist movements in Western Europe and the Russian Marxists were influenced by it, but not exclusively.
6.2 This came about because the move had come to an incorrect understanding of Marx’s views on the role of the economy in relation to the history of social development. In general , the sciences had begun ton specialize and developed into independent disciplines. Natural science, natural philosophy, became physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, botany, etc. Psychology broke away from philosophy, and political science and economics became independent specialized studies. Marxists began to discuss the development of society in terms of economic reductionism. Lukács mentions Rudolf Hilferding (1877-1941-killed by NAZIs), for example, who was a leading theoretician of the SPD, who taught that Marx’s economic theory was “compatible with any world view.” However, Marx did not think so. Economics was only one, the most important, factor to consider in understanding the development of society and the establishment of communism. A militant materialist world view was also necessary in order to develop proper class consciousness and break away from the confines bourgeois capitalist thinking. Lenin always realized this and while the majority of Marxists adopted the view that socialism was basically an economic movement to increase industrial production, he thought this was a distortion which lost sight of the other important causal factors necessary for communism— such as individual freedom and democratic decision making procedures in a classless society. These strategic goals were lost sight of in the tactics are primary view.
6.3 Consequences of economic reductionism—the focus on industrialization as the basic meaning of what building socialism was all about had a negative consequence in that the building of genuine socialist democracy was ignored — being ‘democratic’ meant agreeing with the party leadership — there was no ‘loyal opposition’. While criticizing Stalin for this reductionism, Lukács also notes that Bukharin was also guilty of this kind of distortion. By development of ‘forces of production’ he held that only the development of ‘technology’ was what Marxism was about. But this was not the case. Marx emphasized the economic forces but he was thinking not of just basic economic relations or just technology but other social factors that influenced the society as a whole : “Marx places the priority on the concept of social totality.” This would be a good use of the concept “totalitarian” rather than the bad use by bourgeois thinkers. The primary negative development during the Stalin era of the overdetermination of the concept of industrialization was the development “of a system for the bureaucratic manipulation of society in socialism.”
6.4 Towards the end of his life Stalin seems to have been aware of this problem. In 1952 he published The Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. He realized there was a problem of ‘’subjectivism’’ at work in Russian Marxist theory and he wanted to retool the theory on a materialist foundation—I.e., real Marxism. In this case it would mean basing Russian economic theory on Marx’s theory of value instead of just subjectively claiming economic progress and socialism on the basis of falsifying the real statistics to give the appearance of economic gains that were not really there. These illusions were then ensured by banning criticism. The reason for all this was “not to let the population know that the rise of Soviet production lagged behind that of the capitalist world.’’ This, by the way, is what ultimately killed the Soviet Union and its opposite is what is propelling China forward. So Stalin had the right idea here—falsifying economic reality was very un-Marxist, unscientific.
6.5 Stalin Misinterprets Marx— Lukács maintains that Stalin misinterpreted (misrepresented) Marx’s views on the nature of surplus value He presents two passages from Stalin’s economic book which he says shows this. 1) “The matter in question is that the articles of consumption, which are necessary to guarantee the expenditure of labor power in the production process, are themselves produced and realized in the form of commodities which are subject to the effects of the law of value. The effect of the law of value becomes apparent here.” 2) “ Its is said that the law of value is a permanent law, indispensable for all periods of historical development, and even if the law of value ceased being an effective regulator of exchange relations in the period of the second phase of communist society, it would still stay in force as a regulator of the relations between the different branches of production and the distribution of labor between them. 3) This is absolutely incorrect. Value, like the law of value, is a historical category and thus related to the existence
of commodity production. If the production of commodities ceases to exist, value in its manifestations and the law of value likewise disappears.” Is this what Marx really taught?
6.6 In the first volume of Capital Marx presents value as measured by socially necessary labor time. It serves two needs for Marx as he says, 1.) ” Its socially planned distribution regulates the correct relationship between the different functions of labor and different needs.’’ 2.) ‘’Labor time serves as a measure of the individual producer’s share in common labor and therefore also of the individually consumable proportion of common production.’’ What Stalin said was ‘’incorrect’’— that the law of value remains operative under socialism, Marx said was, in fact, correct since ‘’the share of every producer to the means of subsistence is determined by his labor time.’’ Abolishing commodity production doesn’t abolish value, socially necessary labor time, and Marx thought that surplus labor could exist under socialism [the general consumption fund].
6.7 Socialism: Surplus Labor or Necessary Labor. Lukäcs maintains there was very little socialist ‘’democracy’’ in Stalin’s USSR. To justify the system his policies created Stalin claimed that he was following Marx’s economic theories and there was no exploitation of surplus labor going on thus the system was democratic. The first thing we have to do is understand how Stalin misrepresented Marx’s views in his book The Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. Let’s look at how Stalin views the concepts of ‘ necessary labor time’ and ‘surplus labor time.’ He agrees that Marx correctly used these concepts in explaining the working of capitalism, but what about the working of socialism? Stalin wrote that it was bizarre ‘’to talk of ‘necessary’ and ‘surplus’ labor now, as if under the present conditions the labor performed by the worker for the benefit off society, for the expansion of production, for the development of education, for public health, for the organization of defense, was not as necessary for the presently ruling working class
As the labor performed for the gratification of needs is for the individual laborer and his family.’’ Stalin is denying that surplus labor exists under socialism (unlike Marx) and only necessary labor exists. At this point it looks like a simple argument over terminology. Marx says surplus labor is necessary under capitalism so that capitalists can make private profit out of exploiting workers. Stalin is saying this kind of surplus labor doesn’t exist under socialism (exploitative) but the surplus value created beyond that needed just to reproduce labor is, under socialism, invested in the society for the benefit of all, not private capitalists. Stalin is certainly correct as two different species of ‘necessary labor’ are being discussed— privately expropriated and socially expropriated. Here, at any rate, Stalin is not distorting the essence of Leninism.
6.8 Im this paragraph Lukás points out that Marks thought the expropriation of surplus value is the major feature of all the previous economic forms i.e.,slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. In all of these a ruling class survived by expropriating the surplus labor of the working people be they slaves, serfs ,or proletarians. One of the features of the development of surplus value is its tendency to increase over time while necessary labor time decreases. This is observed in slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. Another feature is that with the progressive economic development from slavery to socialism, increasing portions of surplus labor are devoted to social needs and to a possible higher development of the human personality. Modern advanced capitalist societies have higher living standards than do feudal or slave societies.
6.9 Under socialism, when labor has been socialized, the appropriation of surplus labor by private property is not possible. Surplus labor is now dedicated to the social collective and its needs. This will allow individuals to have more time for their own creative development as human beings. Here is what Marx says in the Grundrisse :’’The free development of individuality, and therefore not the reduction of the necessary labor time in order to increase surplus labor but generally the reduction of the necessary work of society to a minimum in order to allow for the artistic and scientific education of individuals as a result of the time and creative means that has become available to all of them.’’ Marx [Critique of the Gotha Program] criticizes LaSalle’s view that under socialism the worker gets back the full value of his labor. Surplus labor is necessary for the administration of society, for schools, healthcare, administration costs, subsidized housing, etc., all of which can be fully funded under socialism for the people which is impossible under capitalism. Lukas says what Stalin essentially did was ignore the idea of surplus labor under socialism and include all these social expenses as part of LaSalle’s concept of the full value of his labor being returned to the worker. This confuses categories of labor that Marx considered distinct i.e., necessary versus surplus. Both LaSalle and Stalin misrepresented the real social reproduction process under socialism.
6.10 Lukács wants to use education as an example of this problem of necessary/surplus labor. Formal education systems weren’t really necessary before capitalism, at least not for the masses. However capitalism needs technically trained workers. Machinery is complicated, directions have to be followed , literacy is needed, so public education becomes necessary under both capitalism and socialism.The problem is this, what type of education system should be developed under socialism? Lukács says this is a problem the workers themselves have to solve for themselves. The workers themselves will know what they need to know to run the economic system under socialism. This will be a new type of education system created from below not imposed from above.
6.11 One of main tasks facing Lenin was the problem of illiteracy which was wide spread in the revolutionary masses which had freed themselves by overthrowing the capitalists and feudalistic ruling classes. This was a major goal of the new education system as it was necessary in order to free the workers from the ideology of the ruling class which infected their understanding of the world. The masses were then able to begin their self education in the building of socialism. One of the major goals of socialism would be creating more free time for the working people so that they would be able to engage in, not only self education but socialist government sponsored educational programs as well. Lukács here remarks, ‘’This empowering of man is accomplished through the reduction of the labor time necessary, which Marx once called the “superfluous,’’ for their own self-reproduction, because then more surplus labor time can be applied to the task of man’s self-genesis.’’
6.12 The level of human empowerment depends on the level of economic development. Now the problem of democratization comes to the foreground. Is there a contradiction between the social and the individual interests of society? Can the individual labor in such a way that he increases his own development and also the social productive development of society. In the critique of the Gothic program Marx pointed out the the Kingdom of Freedom in which human powers increase is valid in itself, and this Kingdom is counterpoised to the Kingdom of Necessity and the Kingdom of Necessity cannot be ignored, it must first be conquered before the Kingdom of Freedom can expand. The economy then has a transcendent relation to society as a whole and Marx says, “Labor was not only the means to life but had become the first need of life.’’
6.13 Are there irreconcilable differences between individual interests and social interests or can they be harmonized. They have not been harmonized in previous social forms and especially are they not harmonized under capitalism. It’s the problem of the subjective individual interests versus the objective interests necessary for a functioning society. Lukács says we should follow Lenin’s ideals having to do with proletarian democracy. We start with the reality of that today’s social and individual differences are in conflict, but plan for the socialist future where society and social interests are harmonized. If we keep in mind the socialist future that we are working for there will be no irreconcilable conflicts between individual interests and social interests in the future socialist world. It’s true the social structures necessary to make society work are purely objective and exist outside the subjective desires of humans and we have to adapt to them. But we can understand them and adapt to them in such a way that we work with them and not against them. That is the idea of freedom being the recognition of necessity. Constructing socialism under proletarian democracy our fellow humans become co-workers with us and there should be no contradictions between us. Lukács concludes that: “As the victory of self-determination, socialist democracy transforms the human neighbor, one’s fellow man, from acting as a hindrance to one’s own praxis to an indispensable and affirmative co-worker and co-helper.
6.14 The level of economic development conditions the amount of necessary versus surplus labor time. After the military victory, the Russian Revolution was stuck in its tracks re the availability of surplus labor time because of the backward nature of Russian industrial development. This meant all the wonderful positive benefits promised by socialism would be delayed. The the revolution opened up democratic discussion by the masses who were concerned with all the developments of the revolution but particularly the political situation and the maintenance of the revolution in power. The the negative effects of the backward development could be ignored for only so long as far as it affected the living standards and free time available to the working people for their own development as opposed to what the State needed. The spontaneous revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses could only be counted on for so long.
6.15. Birth of the Soviets—based on the experience of the 1871 Paris Commune,, the first attempt to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, Soviets began to form in 1917 during the revolution. Lukács tells us they have become the model of socialist democracy not only then but even now. They brought together the revolutionary masses of peasants and workers and soldiers to organize and discuss revolutionary action in their homes workplaces and every day life. Here the masses of working people and their Soviets discussed all the political realities of the day and decided on which actions to take. The new revolutionary government led by Lenin carried out their demands. The government also explained to the masses the various choices available for action so that they were able to form their own revolutionary praxis to bring about the results that they wanted. This movement was indispensable in the development of the consciousness of the revolutionary masses.
6.16. The Cell of Teleological Action— The creation of many of the Soviets was the result in many cases of spontaneous activity by the masses. Only later were the Soviets organized systematically under the government. Lukcás maintains that Stalin misrepresented Lenin’s attitudes towards spontaneity in order to strengthen his own control over the masses. In the Stalin era Lenin was presented as an opponent to spontaneity but the reality was different. In What Is To Be Done, Lenin referred to spontaneity as “the cell of teleological action.” As a result of spontaneous action many workers first developed a higher class consciousness directed towards the end of creating socialism. Therefore there was a role for spontaneity in revolutionary activity, not a predominant role but not one to be entirely rejected. Lukcás brings up this issue now but tells us, ”This movement of spontaneity towards a teleology of praxis will be discussed in detail later on’’. So, we shall be returning to this topic.
6.17. The Cilvil War and the Economy— The civil war brought out the heroic determination of the workers and peasants to achieve victory and lay down the foundations for the building of socialism, but the backward state of the economy had to be dealt with. Lenin recognized this and this forced the abandonment of war communism and the establishment of the New Economic Policy, the NEP. Now he had to find a way to combat bureaucratization which would repress the spontaneity of the masses of workers and peasants to work together on revolutionary projects. It was this alliance which led to the overthrow of capitalism in Russia, but the backward economy threatened to break this alliance up. While Lenin lived, the party actively supported this alliance. Nevertheless after the Civil War the economic problems that faced Russia could not be solved by the revolutionary spontaneity that marked the revolution of 1917. New ways had to be found to build the economy and maintain the alliance of the workers and peasants. Lenin made it clear when the NEP was introduced that revolutionary enthusiasm alone could not solve their problems; there would be no Great Leap Forward.
6.18 Peace Restored— After peace was restored with the end of the World War and the Civil War the revolution was faced with two tasks which had to be completed before you could talk about establishing socialism in the country. Task one was to restore the broken economy to the production level of the pre-war era. The second task would be to develop that economy to a level at least as high as that of the capitalist West and even higher in order to generate the surplus labor necessary for the creation of socialism. How long would this take? At least a decade or more for the first task. This would be the job of the present generation of working people who would have to sacrifice their labor time in the interest of the future for a better life for their children and grandchildren. But how long would the second task take? Overcoming the West— does that take two or three or more generations? The first task was a quantitative one and the second task was also quantitative but it was to lead to the qualitative change necessary for socialism. We now know that this stage was never reached. What was accomplished in the 30s was destroyed by the Nazis in World War II and in 1945 the revolution had to begin over again practically from scratch. Lenin had spoken of an historical epoch for the building of socialism. That epoch ended in 1991, task not completed. The Chinese, by the way, seem to be successfully on the road to complete the equivalent of the Russian second task, and, hopefully, in a generation or two finish completing the economic requirements for the creation of socialism.
16.19 Government from above—the successors of Lenin focused all their activities towards the economic development of Russia so as to lay the basis for socialism. They did not consider the question of democracy at this time as what they effect did according to Lukcás, was to establish a centralized government handing down regulations from above. This resulted in the creation of a massive bureaucracy which was to rule the Soviet Union. In his last years Lenin had worried about both building the economy and creating a functional democracy. His successors devoted all of their efforts to the former problem and ignored the latter. The differences between his successors became tactical in nature concentrating on how to best industrialize the country and the strategic result of a democratically run socialist government fell by the wayside. Lenin’s method was to try and build both a socialist economic system and working class political democracy as a way to supervise it. After Lenin’s death the actual praxis was to find the best tactical road to an advanced economy. Stalin was also following this road and his praxis was victorious because he was a better technician than his would be rivals. Lukcás says his methodology was not that of Lenin’s because he only concerned himself with one half of Lenin’s vision, the economic road.
6.20 Stalin and his opponents distorted socialist politics by focusing almost completely on tactics. Stalin became the supreme leader because he was a superior technician. These tactics however ended up warping the democratic foundations necessary for Socialist humanism, the foundations that Lenin had considered it was important to preserve and protect and in this respect Stalinism became the opposite of Leninism. The successful industrialization of Russia and the Russian defeat of Hitler put Stalin in the position of being able to convince the world communist movement that his tactical version of socialism was true Leninism whereas, according to Lukcás, it was the opposite. In the last period of his life in the 60s and the very beginning of the 70s, Lukcás thought socialism was beginning to have a renewal and that a transitional period was commencing when the world communist movement would get back to true Leninism, that is to say, real democratic control by the people and the workers and not dictates from the party bureaucracy. It was the duty of communists in this transition to ‘’tear to pieces’’ the myth that Stalin was a true successor to Lenin. Lukcás, who lived through the Stalin era, said that now that the facts of what really was happening under Stalin have become widely known, it has become ‘’a matter of extreme urgency” for the communists of the world to restore genuine Leninism. The generation Lukcás was addressing failed.
6.21 A rough draft— Lukács tells us this manuscript he is leaving behind is a rough draft and not a finished product. It contains an analysis of the Stalin era based on all the information available during his lifetime. To judge its worth today the reader should be knowledgeable in the history of the last half century of what has happened in the socialist world, or ex-world, since Lukas is death in 1971, and archive information available since the fall of the Soviet Union. A reader should also be familiar with Hegel’s philosophy to the extent suggested by Lenin in his philosophical notebooks. Lukács thanks a thorough study of the use that Stalin has put of the quotes from for Mark, Engels, and Lenin that he uses in his writings will show that he has taken them out of context and falsified what was actually being taught by his predecessors. He expressly points out that chapter four of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) known as the Short Course, which was written by Stalin and universally read and studied in the world communist movement (only Mao’s little red book had a wider distribution) will show that Stalin’s definition of dialectics was un-Marxist. There is much more in the fourth chapter than the quote about dialectics and Lukács says the whole chapter is nothing but a vulgar substitute for real Marxism-Leninism. The problem we have today is because of the influence of Stalin the vulgar substitution is what people identify as the correct interpretation of Marxism-Leninism. This paragraph is very general and Lukács will have to be more concrete as this chapter continues.
6.22 Marxism—unique or part of Western culture? This chapter points out some major differences between Stalin and Lenin re Stalin’s definition of Marxist theory from his work the Foundations of Leninism: ‘’ Theory is the experience of the workers movement of all lands taking its universal form.’’ Lenin’s view was broader. He thought Marxism was a synthesis and evolutionary development out of the prior history of Western civilization, more specifically from the traditions that led to German philosophy philosophy British political science/economy and the utopian socialist theories of the French developed from the Enlightenment. Stalinism thought of Marxism as something new and original so we didn’t have to really pay attention to the past cultures which proceeded it. We saw what happened in China under Mao and the Culture Revolution when a so-called proletarian culture tried to destroy traces of China’s past as remnants of feudalism and capitalism. The Stalinist view of Hegel is an example of a similar process. Stalin’s major ally Zhdanov tried to divorce Marxism from Hegelianism. We of course know that Lenin thought Hegel was important to study and we wouldn’t really understand Marxism unless we understood Hegel’s philosophy, especially his Logic. Lukács says Zhdanov’s vulgar version of Hegel presented him has having created a reactionary philosophy as a response to the French Revolution. Marxism actually includes and sublates all the progressive tendencies in humanity that manifested themselves from the neolithic through ancient Egypt to our modern world. Lukács’ emphasis is on Western civilization but now we must include the great civilizations of the East and other areas as well. What is Chinese socialism but a synthesis of German communist thought plus some Confucian characteristics? Marxism is the culmination of all the progressive tendencies of all the previous cultures of mankind that have developed through the centuries.
6.23. Stalinist Deformation of Marxism—this deformation became obvious at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union when one of Stalin’s major so-called contributions to Marxism turned out to be completely fraudulent. Lukács is referring to the thesis that during the dictatorship of the proletariat class struggle becomes intensified. To extend the critique of this thesis to a wholesale repudiation of Stalinism will require two further methodological observations.
6.24 First Methodological Observation—the theory of increased class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat was thought up for the justification of a previously made tactical decision to eliminate opposition to Stalin’s policies by means of administrative actions involving charges of betrayal of the Soviet Union and of Marxism. There was no idea of a loyal opposition and the procedures of Democratic Centralism by which dissident voices could be heard and different ideas discussed and voted upon, diversity of opinion unity of action ,were disregarded. This was the period of the Great Purges. The Second Methodological Observation that Lukcás puts forth is that this oppressive behavior was not unusual, it became a hallmark of the Stalinist method of rule.
6.25 6.25 The Hitler-Stalin Pact: an example—Lukács says this was a purely tactical maneuver based on real politic to gain time for the Soviet Union to defend itself against a future Nazi invasion. Lukács supported this maneuver. Stalin didn’t treat it as a merely tactical maneuver but as part of another one of his distortions of Marx’s theory he interpreted World War II as if it were analogous to World War I, just a squabble between imperialist powers, and so the international communist movement was instructed not to support their own government against Hitler but to struggle to overthrow their own capitalist governments. As soon as Hitler attacked the Soviet Union Stalin decided it wasn’t an imperial war like World War I, it was really an international war against fascism and the communists should now support their own governments against Hitler. These were tactical maneuvers in other words. Stalin was interpreting tactical maneuvers that he was making as if they were major principles of Marxism-Leninism rather than temporary expediences.
6.26 Stalin’s praxis— the very basis of Stalin’s praxis was to justify tactical maneuvering by appeals to the proper interpretation of Marxist theory. Even slight differences of opinion were not tolerated. They were interpreted as evidence of trying to hide and camouflage real differences by pretending to have only minor objections. One the worst offenses was the initial response to the social Democrats.He referred to them as the ‘’twin brothers’’ of the fascists and propagated the term ‘’social fascists.’’ This split the resistance to the rise of Hitler. Lukács said this methodology has to be fought because it is even today being practiced by communist parties and socialist states. Of course ‘’even today’’ was the 1960s and 70s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismemberment of all the socialist states that were aligned with it in Europe, the objection is moot. None of the practitioners of Stalin’s distorted Marxism remain in power. No serious communist party today calls itself ‘’Stalinist,’’ although there is a tendency to identify tactics as expressions of Marxist theory rather than temporary necessary historical compromises.
6.27. Stalin’s voluntarism—since ideology only functioned to justify already made tactical decisions there was no real unity of theory and practice. Practice came first, theory was just hauled in to justify it. Once a tactical line was willed, theory was tinkered with to show that it was necessary. There are many examples and in this paragraph Lukács uses Stalin’s definition of ideology from his work on language and linguistics [ Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, 1950]. Stalin wrote, ‘’The superstructure is the product of one single epoch in the course of which a given economic basis arises and prevails. For that reason, the superstructure does not last long. It will be removed and disappear with the removal and disappearance of the basis.’’ This is not how Marx thought about the relation of superstructure and basis. He was not as deterministic as Stalin. Marx also referred to subjective factors, and it was a mixture of laws deterministic and semi-deterministic plus objective factors that resulted in one ideology disappearing and being replaced by another. Lukács calls Stalin’s view deterministic and a form of voluntarism, an example of ‘the triumph of the will’’ over objective obstacles. Although the basis of slavery and feudalism have been removed, traces still remain in the capitalist superstructure.
6.28 Pros and Cons of Stalin—In this and the next seven paragraphs to the end of the chapter Lukács deals with the pros and cons of Stalin. He does not use the Chinese formula of 70% good 30% bad which is too mechanical, in any case it would be in anachronistic. He maintains that under Stalin the soviet structure of the socialist state was destroyed. He tells us the purpose of socialism is to overcome the separation between every day life and political life, in other words humans will be involved in all aspects of the soviet state which will be collectively discussed at all levels through the participation of the citizens in soviets. Due to historical circumstances, perhaps unavoidable in order to build socialism and protect the Soviet Union from external aggression, the soviet structures were bypassed and a vast state centered professional bureaucracy run by the communist party did all the actual political decision making for the country from the top down. This means the original purpose of socialism to create a state that didn’t do this was not carried out. This doesn’t mean socialism wasn’t created, but it wasn’t socialism the envisioned by Marx, Engles and LenIn. This is not how the revolution began. The mass enthusiasm for the Bolsheviks was based on the fact, as Lukács remarks ‘’the Revolution had opened a new historical horizon, the possibility of new human beginnings.” But we have already seen that this original vision had occurred to the founders as based on a revolution in advanced industrial society. The soviet experience in Russia and its failure would be unique. In the beginning, however, the masses dreamed the thousand year-old struggle to achieve the true species being of humanity was at hand. Then there was the Civil War.
6.29. The Civil War—Lukács tells us the Civil War in Russia produced two contradictory results. First, enthusiasm and mass popular support for the revolution. Second, due to the backward economic situation it created a nationwide top down bureaucracy run by the party to put Russia on the road to socialism. After Lenin’s death the problem of bureaucratization developed. The Soviets were supposed to allow political participation from the bottom up in all the major decisions made by the socialist government. But the need to industrialize, solve the food problem, and maintain Soviet power over a country the size of Russia required a strong bureaucracy in order to manage all of the problems. After Stalin came to power his tactics were to industrialize and centralize, and this meant consciously or unconsciously the mechanisms of Soviet democracy for the masses, which was Lenin’s goal, fell by the wayside. The local Soviets, although elected, became merely administrative instruments to carry out decisions made by the center and applied to the regions top down. Consciously or unconsciously the party governed by Stalin’s tactics prevented mechanisms of local democracy envisioned by Lenin from coming into practice.
6.30. Socialism versus socialist democracy—Lukács distinguishes between socialism, an industrial and economic system of social ownership versus private ownership of the means of production, and socialist democracy, which is a form of socialism with democratic control by the people as opposed to bureaucratic centralism. Lenin favored socialism of course but in its democratic form not the bureaucratic centralism that developed under Stalin. Nevertheless, we must be clear. Stalin accomplished four things which were the best that seem to have been historically possible under the system he controlled. First, he laid down the industrial and economic foundations for the creation of socialism, but this was minus the basis for politically democratic socialism. Second, under Stalin the Soviet Union ceased being a backwards underdeveloped country. ‘’This was Stalin achievement.” Third, there was no restitution of capitalism in the Soviet Union under Stalin and the Soviet Union became a major economic power and the second most powerful country in the world after the United States. Fourth, the Soviet Union did this without making any concessions regarding the essence of socialism which is ‘’the socialization of the means of production.” This is ,of course, more than just nationalization of industry; it’s the social ownership for the benefit of the people. The problem was the central bureaucracy decided what was beneficial for the people they didn’t have much participation in the decisions. This is the picture Lukács has of the Soviet Union at the time he is writing this book a half a century ago.
6.31 Stalin established the basis for socialism—Lukcás says, although he has criticized Stalin for abandoning the Democratic aspects of Leninism, he nevertheless established the basis for socialism in the Soviet Union. This had ‘’world historic consequences.’’ Another double edged consequence was he weakened the anti-Hitler struggle when he attacked the Social Democrats as social fascists. This helped Hitler’s rise to power. Nevertheless, it was under Stalin’s leadership that the Soviet Union was the major factor in the overthrow of Nazism and prevented Hitler from virtually taking over all of Europe. Not only that, the world knows the use of the atomic bomb against Japan was not a military necessity. It was actually used to put the Soviet Union on notice that the United States was the top military country. The Soviet Union under Stalin got its own bomb and thus prevented the United States from actually dictating its will to the rest of the world. He was responsible for preventing a Third World War and Soviet power enabled the anti-colonist movement and peoples around the world to begin their own revolutions and quest for freedom. I mention as an aside that the US through NATO and Israel and other military alliances is still trying to maintain itself as the world hegemon. The US thought after the collapse of the Soviet Union that it could resume/ maintain world leadership. Russia and China have so far been able to keep this from happening. Whatever his faults re democratic development within the Soviet Union, the world owes Stalin a debt of gratitude for the destruction of Hitlerism and the stalemate he and his successors imposed on US imperialism.
6.32 Soviet Union the protector of world peace—It was the economic and social base of the Soviet Union that allowed it to prevent a third world war and play a role as an anti-imperialist champion of the world’s people. That base rested on the abolition of private property in the means of production, the abolition of the bourgeoisie as a class, and the establishment of a socialist economic system. There were no economic groups in the Soviet Union that benefited from war or the armaments industry. This was not the case in the capitalist West where private property and control of the industrial might of the state was privately held and used to generate profits for the ruling capitalist class. The progressive socialist policies followed by Stalin and the leadership were also the result of the objective material relations of socialism not the subjective thoughts or feelings of the leaders. There were tactical errors that resulted from these subjective factors but the role of the Soviet Union “as the defender of world peace” was the logical consequence of its socialist economy and the absence of an exploitative ruling class seeking personal monetary gains from private ownership. Today we can see that the war lobby in capitalist countries, especially in the alliances controlled by US imperialism, are responsible for the disorder and violence that characterizes the world economy. The masses are kept ignorant of this by the capitalist control of the mass media and education.
6.33. War no longer profitable — Lukács tells us that under socialism there are no longer special economic groups that profit from war. This was true in the entire socialist block. ‘’War: what is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!’’ That was the attitude. War could only have negative consequences for the well-being of the masses. This is why all socialist countries were and are peace loving. Now that Russia has become a capitalist country there are elements within the country that profit from war. Against all the predictions of the West the Russian economy is doing well and the fighting in Ukraine is intensifying. The Russian economy has stabilized and is even growing despite Western sanctions and the expenses of waging war. Government subsidies to businesses making war supplies have healthy economic consequences, and jobs and income are going up in poor areas of Russia. In fact the collapse of the socialist block led by the Soviet union makes war more probable and military spending is going up not down due to this new Cold War the West is waging against Russia and it’s allies and friends.
6.34 War and Armaments—Socialism created peaceful anti-war States but this was with regard to war itself not armaments or preparations for defense and in this respect the socialist states competed on almost equal terms with the capitalist states. Consumer goods were a different story. The states with Stalinist bureaucracies had planned economies not subject to review by actually functioning local soviets. These planned economies had their consumer goods chosen by the state bureaucracy. The exception was with military equipment; here the military had veto power and it only accepted armaments that they tested and approved. It was able to compete favorably with the West. It was the only part of the economy that had this right. The consumer goods were not allocated in this way. They were not subject, as the arms were, to supply and demand considerations which capitalist economies used to determine which consumer goods were really desired. In other words, the military told the state which use values to create but there was no similar situation in the consumer economy where the use values were determined by the central planners. This was ultimately to lead to Gorbachev.
6.25 6.35 Chapter 6 Conclusion— Soviet socialism achieved two major goals according to Lukács: it established a universal policy of peace and it made an industrial military base that was an effective force in world history. However, unique conditions of the development of socialism in the Soviet Union Stalin’s policy of tactics over theory reduced Soviet influence in the world primarily to simply national political politics and therefore the internationalization of the Soviet revolution was hindered. Lukas offers the following to show what he considers the contrast between Lenin and Stalin and their interpretation of Marxism. He refers to the support given to the Turkish revolution under Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) the imperialist powers fought against this revolution Lenin supported it and his position was that irrespective of the social system that revolution represented it was an anti-imperialist revolution and that alone merit sthe support of the Soviets. Lukács considers this the correct interpretation of Mark’s theory when it comes to the national liberation of peoples from Imperial powers so even a bourgeois revolution, if it is anti-imperialist, can be supported. Lukacs says Stalin did not follow this policy. He followed the tactics of looking for advantages for the position of the Soviet Union internationally. This was a praxis that led to supporting regimes that were not actually or didn’t appear to be anti-imperialist but were called socialist because of a tactical need to have a justification for supporting them; for example supporting the Arab states against Israel was justified as supporting socialism even though some of these states were not actually socialist. This confused people by not making a really Marxist analysis of these states the Soviet Union found itself being accused of merely engaging in great power politics based on the Cold War. Lukács does say, however, that the support the Soviet Union was giving really amounted to a basic revolutionary and anti-imperialist action it just was not apparent to everybody because of the tactical maneuvering that was used for the justification. Admittedly this is a confusing issue. We are being told the appearance did not properly reflect the essence but it wasn’t really contrary to the essence. This is paradoxical. In order to solve this paradox we will have to thoroughly understand the issues discussed in the last chapter of the book, Chapter 7 on the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
7,1 The essential features of Soviet economic development— the ideas in this paragraph are based on the economic work of the Hungarian economist F. Jánossi, 1914-1997. There is a Wikipedia article on this thinker for those who want more information. There are two main stages in the development of the Soviet economy. One was the period after the Civil War when the foundations of Socialism were laid down, and the other was the period after World War II when the economy had to be reconstructed to its pre-war level so that it could advance. What Jánossi pointed out was that comparing the economic reconstruction in Western Europe, especially West Germany, and that of the Soviet Union a centrally planned economy had advantages over capitalism in its ability to recover. The second thing he discovered was that a planned economy could make its investments ‘’ solely in terms of the optimal benefits to society.’’
7.2. Stalin’s theory of economic development was a misunderstanding of Marx. The Soviets wanted to make up for their backwardness by developing a theory that socialism would develop faster than capitalism so the ‘’primitive accumulation’’ that was needed to catch up and pass capitalism would be faster than if normal capitalist development took p[lace. This theory worked at the beginning of economic construction but due to the objective economic conditions as they developed the rate of advance began to slow down. Stalin’s theory could not explain this as it held socialism should be advancing faster along the road not slowing down as it developed. Instead of trying to discover the objective economic conditions that were at work, Stalinism decided it must be due to sabotage, traders, and Trotskyist enemies of socialism. But, Lukács admits, even with this faulty theory, just before World War II the Soviet economy reached its highest level and even surpassed this level with the reconstruction after World War II. This was no mean accomplishment. However, the search for traders and enemies of socialism had negative consequences for the development of the type of democratic socialism Lenin had envisioned. Now there was a big difference between the capitalist transition from feudalism and the socialist. Marx describes the brutality and violence of the Capitalist transition when the agricultural population was uprooted and driven into the urban environments concentrated around factories and the new capitalist economy. Lukács points out that it was only after this violent transition was made that capitalism could settle down and the workers could live under the normal economic laws of the system.
7.3 This is a theoretical chapter. Primitive accumulation under socialism is qualitatively different from primitive accumulation under capitalism. Once capitalism was underway, having resolved its primitive accumulation problem, it became an advanced economic system whose contradictions will lead it to the stage of socialism. Socialism will inherit a completely functioning advanced economic system. That was Mark’s theory. The Soviet Union was economically backwards and capitalism had not completed its primitive accumulation. This had to be made up for with the help of the socialist state. Lukács points out the major difference. Capitalism has built in mechanisms to self adjust its internal problems. But socialism is a decision people make to change their system from capitalism and profit making to public ownership and an economy that is people centered not profit centered. Stalinism was a system that evolved to bring about an advanced industrial economy that could function as the background for an advanced socialist State. We should note that the Soviet union never actually gained that final end. The system by which advanced capitalist economies become socialist has yet to reveal itself. Stalinism and its methods may have been necessary for the Soviet advance but it is inappropriate for advanced capitalist countries. It now belongs to history.
7.4 Stalin maintained socialist economic and cultural goals during Soviet ‘’original’’ (primitive) accumulation. Even though he was critical of Stalin’s methods, Lukács admits during this phase Stalin mostly followed socialist values in the development of the new Soviet culture. Unlike capitalist culture at the time, which was guided by the profit motive, in Russia high cultural values, Scientific sophistication, and artistic appreciation were made available to the working classes and peasant masses. These strata in capitalist countries rarely had the accessibility to higher cultural and scientific culture that was afforded to the Soviet masses. Lukás concludes that there was no comparison between the achievements made in the Soviet Union and those in capitalism with respect to the higher cultural levels reached by the average Soviet citizen and those of the capitalist world.
7.5 Revolutionary origins of capitalism and socialism—unlike the evolution of the other economic systems both capitalism and socialism were revolutionary interruptions of the normal evolutionary sequences. They both share this revolutionary characteristic which describes the birth of capitalism out of feudalism and the fact that socialism is a revolutionary advance out of the capitalist system which prepared the preconditions for it. There is a qualitative difference between the two systems. Capitalism, also called the Kingdom of Necessity by Marx, is a system completely controlled by the economic laws on which it developed and which human beings are subject to as long as they are within the system. Workers and capitalists alike are subjected and controlled by the laws by which the capitalist system continues to reproduce itself. There is a qualitative difference with regard to socialism. Marx thought of socialism is the Kingdom of Freedom because with the abolition of capitalism the deterministic laws by which it demands profits and accumulation and growth are also abolished. This means humans, not economic laws that they can’t control, can plan and direct how socialism develops. Socialism can be directed by’’ human teleological design.’’ Lukács says neither Stalin nor Khrushchev realized this and were under the illusion ‘’that every social formation was bound to the same dynamics of development.” They thought there was one road to socialism—their way or the highway. Now, seeing socialism with Chinese characteristics, we see there are other possible roads to socialism than the Russian model.
7.6. Necessity versus Freedom — the economic developments in their highest form brought about by the Kingdom of Necessity will be the absolute necessary foundation for building the Kingdom of Freedom i.e. socialism, especially its communist outcome. This last stage for Marx is” the development of human powers, which is valid as an end in itself.” This will be the result of the teleological praxis of humankind. It will not be the result of impersonal necessary economic laws. At this stage Marx believes our species will be working in ‘’conditions most worthy and adequate to its human nature.”
[7.7.] Contemporary capitalism has made the life of the working class easier. Previous forms of labor resulted in the exploitation of workers by brute force (slavery and serfdom). Modern capitalism has provided cleaner working conditions, reduction of labor time, educational facilities, and better health and living arrangements. Movements, and the working class had to be united and militant to gain them but they did gain them because ultimately they benefited capitalism as well once the capitalists realized reducing necessary labor time allowed them to accumulate value by increasing surplus labor time. The greater productivity and greater surplus value allowed the capitalists to permit improvements for the working class. This led to the illusion that capitalism and labor can work together. Nevertheless both capitalist and workers are subject to the laws of capitalist production. The needs of the economy dictate how the species must work. This is the Kingdom of Necessity Marx talked about. What Marx really wants is a reverse scenario. As Lukács put it, ‘’ the needs of the species must dictate to the objective.’’ In other words, instead of humanity being subject to the laws of economics, the laws of economics will be subject to the needs of humanity. People before profits is the greatest of the Commandments.
7.8 Critique of the Gotha Program— in this section Lukács. quotes from this work by Marx to back up his position that Marx wants a society based on People Before Profits and this society is only possible under a socialism built upon the maximum development of the capitalist system which gives birth to it.
7.9 The above ideas of Marx are not in the least Utopian. They are based on a scientific analysis of the nature of capitalism provided in Das Capital. Human labor is not just the creation of surplus value. It includes all work that humans expend in changing the world and expressing themselves which includes art, literature, music. as well as working in the trades and of course working for capitalists and creating the wealth of capitalist society. The greater productivity in socialism, which reduces to the minimum the necessary labor time to reproduce society, creates more and more free time for people to fulfill their species nature of creative expression in whatever way that suits them. The advancement of capitalism also increases productive labor but it is still is a form of enslavement in which the workers must create the wealth of others. This is the view of Marx as expressed in his mature works according to Lukács.
7.10 Lukács says two interrelated and contradictory features present themselves in these Marxist views. The nature of the economy in the substructure will be rationalized and increased in productivity by economic methods so that in the superstructure labor can be emancipated —“the liberation of human praxis.” For this to take place at the level of communism changes in the way the economy functions will have to be made in the base and features of the superstructure modified to accommodate them. A single decree or edict cannot cover the changes in both these areas. This change will have to come about, Lukács maintains, by gradual and slow modifications; it can’t be rushed. After the victory of the revolution there can be no great leap forward ignoring the economic and social realities of the past that have to be qualitatively changed and not simply modified via decree or Ukase
7.11 Progress is real— Lukács says the entire history of humanity shows that the struggle to improve the lot of our species being has always born fruit. Class society holds back this striving by always being dependent on a servile class. Neventless, there is a tendency to try to attain the the real species being of humans. Lukács only mentions Marx, but this idea basically derives from Hegel who sees all history not as class struggle but as a struggle for humanity to realize its innate spiritual nature which is freedom. This possibility will become an actually with the abolition of class society—the last traces of structures blocking the full expression of our species being will vanish finally with the transition to communism, the second and highest.stage of socialism. For Marx this marks the end of the prehistory of humanity and the beginning of its real history.
7.12 It is not possible to achieve this stage under any system other than Communism where the entire social practice of humanity, not just labor, is directed towards the benefit of all the members of society where the collective an the individual are not in contradiction. All other forms of society that are class based encourage individualism and competition and personal advancement even at the expense of the collective interests. The centrality of the division of labor is what marks class society and the ‘’ enslaving nature’’ of this division can only be overcome by collective struggle.
7.13 Bourgeois society distinguishes humans as citizens and as people. Bourgeois democracy is covered by citizens electing their representatives and taking care of politics. But as individual people we have economic relations with each other and we compete in the different areas of economic life. This duality is a feature of bourgeois society. In socialist society this division has to be transcended. The Kingdom of Freedom will not have people competing antagonistically for economics success. It will be a collective society not one built on an individualism that pits the citizens one against another. The collective will allow real individualism to develop from the human species being not from the competitive nature of capitalism.
7.14. Lukács has already showed us how the working people made a society like the one described above in the Soviets of 1871 [Paris] and 1905 and 1917 [Russia]. But after the Civil War the Soviets were pushed into the background and a bureaucratic state apparatus began to deal with the problems facing the Revolution. The masses lost subjective agency and all the problems of their daily lives were handled by the bureaucracy. This is not the way socialism is supposed to function. Lukács says that Lenin wanted to take steps to prevent this from happening but died before he could do so.
7.15 Stalin’s praxis brought about the economic advancement and development of the basis for the possibility of socialism being constructed in Soviet Union. The same praxis however, Lucács says, blocked the possibility of the development of the Kingdom of Freedom dreamed of by Marx, Engels and Lenin [MEL]. The daily struggle to survive and develop the economy didn’t leave any time for Stalin and his followers to seriously try and lay down the foundations for the type of advanced socialist democracy dreamed of by MEL. Lenin too was constrained concerning what he could practically accomplish with regard to socialist democracy by the same economic backwardness that confronted Stalin and the other Bolshevik leaders. Nevertheless, he always kept in mind the final goal. He kept his eyes on the prize and thought, even during the praxis that was forced upon them, that they should still keep that prize alive in their ongoing propaganda and educational programs. This didn’t happen. Real socialist democracy was never built into the Soviet system.
7.16 Lenin for today—I.e., for Lucács day—Lenin’s methodology is still important. He was the first to put forth the correct Marxist theoretical foundations for praxis that would establish the transition from capitalism to socialism. But his day is not our day. His behavior and activities in the unique circumstances that the Russian revolution found itself in cannot be unquestionably accepted today as a model. We also have to study how he applied himself in the development and practice of the New Economic Policy [NEP]. This was a great compromise that had to be made to preserve the revolution. Lenin did what he could to fight the bureaucratization that was developing. He tried to transmit as far as possible what could be maintained from the socialist views of democracy and economic development and to pass them on as the’’ surviving remnants’’ of Soviet rule.
7.17 Stalinism is irrelevant today. The historical factors that created the type of socialism that prevailed in the Soviet Union associated with Stalin [Stalinism] no longer prevail in the modern world. Lukács is referring to the 60s and 70s of the past century but is even more true today. The objective and subjective features of the world economy and the struggles for liberation today are no longer amenable to Stalinist solutions. MEL’s methodology is still relevant but there are many roads that may be taken on the way to socialism. No modern state trying to become socialist will succeeded with the type of state bureaucracy created by Stalinism which failed in the Soviet Union because the masses were never democratically integrated into its functioning. Only the formal abstract notions of democracy were practiced the secret ballot, elections, mass meetings, but the outcomes were manipulated by the bureaucracy to their predetermined results. 50 years on we can see the correctness of Lukács position. Modern Marxist-Leninists have no wish to use the outdated methods of the previous century in constructing socialism today. This is not a license, however, for the anti-Marxist, revisionist, and opportunistic activities of some so-called communist parties today whose class collaborationist activities with bourgeois parties strengthen the imperialism, militarism, and genocidal tendencies of the capitalist ruling class.
7.18. The critical reevaluation of Stalinism in the Soviet Union began in 1956 with the 20th Congress of the Communist Party. One of the main Stalinist innovations was questioned. That was the revisionist idea that after the revolution and the establishment of socialism the class struggle was intensified as the fallen bourgeoisie tried to regain power. This was the basis for all the purges and executions that took place in the 1930s. The fact of the matter was the old ruling class had been completely defeated and was in no position to overthrow the Soviet government. This critique of Stalin had no practical results on the functioning of the party as it was basically confined to events 20 years in the past and before World War II.
Khrushchev’s criticisms were acceptable as long as they didn’t seem to threaten the current party’s monopoly of power and its suppression of any democratic resistance to its program. Khrushchev himself still functioned as a Stalinist leader but since he wanted to do more criticism and reforms ( he instituted a brief relaxation off censorship called ‘the thaw’) he was removed by the leadership and Stalinism (with a human face) was reestablished as the basic ruling methodology in the Soviet Union. We know what resulted from that as 27 years later the socialist world as we knew it In eastern Europe and the Soviet Union vanished.
7.19. 7.19 It is important to note that useful as it was the 20th Congress only partially and incompletely dealt with the problems of Stalinism. Khrushchev was correct to point out the personality cult and the violation of the rule of law that the dictatorship instituted but but the real causes of these distorted practices were not dealt with. Everything was blamed on Stalin. And while it is true that he had a dictatorial personality and used his organizational skills to further his personality cult and his violation of the rule of law he could not have done this just as an individual. Lukács maintains ‘’ Stalinism was not reducible to personal totalitarianism or the uprooting of the rule of law.’’
7.20 The cause of the problems facing Stalinism was the issue regarding ’’primitive accumulation.’’ That is, the backwardness of the system had to be overcome. Social wealth had to be produced so that the transition to socialism would be possible. The Stalinist dictatorship succeeded in accomplishing the necessary economic level required for the transition to socialism. The problem was once that barrier was passed and the economic construction was developed the dictatorship was ill suited to make the actual transition which would require mass democratic participation. This was never encouraged and it was this problem that faced Khrushchev. A problem the CPSU never solved.
7.21 After WW II a rift began to develop between the politics of the Soviet State and the economic system that was shaping the social environment in which people were living. The society was run by a strata of technical specialists who had developed to carry out the completion of primitive accumulation and the creation of the basis of socialism. This strata was controlled by the CPSU by means of a centralized bureaucracy. The trouble was the methods of the Stalinist CPSU were created in the 1920s and 30s to lead the forced march to full industrialization and the technical strata which carried out the transition had been recruited from the intellectuals educated under the norms of the old ruling class and they were kept on a short leash. The generation coming of age after WWII were people educated in the Soviet Union and were loyal to the system and proud to be part of it. Unfortunately the CPSU still controlled them by the same administrative bureaucracy created in the 20s and 30s. This caused a tension to develop between the Soviet technical intellectual strata needed to run the country and the Stalinist commissars of the CPSU who supervised them. Lukács says this new Soviet educated technical strata ‘’ demanded changed administrative methods in comparison to those practiced under Stalin.’’
7.22 The problem was this. The centrally planned economy was designed in the 30s not for the production of consumer goods but primarily for industrialization and then for World War II military purposes. It was a very rigid planning system and it was ill suited for the production of mass consumer goods which now, after World War II, is what the population wants. This was a great system for laying down the foundations of socialism but it was ill designed for contemporary peace time consumer production. Lukács was writing this in the 70s and the problem was not resolved by the time the Gorbachev reforms began and was one of the reasons for them. Unfortunately the reform got out of control and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. No use blaming individuals for the activities of the Zeitgeist. This was, however, the background to the counter-revolution which overthrew socialism.
7.23. The problem as Lukács saw it, was the communist world was now ready for fully developing socialist democracy. But the two alternatives that were being banded about were both erroneous. The first was that tinkering with the central planning system was all that was necessary because with the development of computers the rigid central planning would be more responsive to the needs of the people; but the problem was the system itself was not democratically administered. This was the position of the Old Guard. The second erroneous position was that of the Reformers. These were those who wanted to adopt Western capitalist market democracy but tailored to fit socialism. Once socialism was established a free market economy, minus capitalism, would function and self correct without all of the problems associated with capitalism and the profit motive. Lukács said that both the Old Guard and Reformers were only tinkering about the margins of the established central planning system which remained intact as a Stalinist administrative undemocratic social force controlling the economy.
7.24 Lukács points out that since the need for economic reforms were on the agenda in the socialist world questions regarding popular democracy were also being raised. The the difficulties can be seen by the Soviet interventions in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in Poland, and finally the collapse of the whole system. This is not the outcome Lukács expected. He didn’t see the conclusion of this movement as he died a few years after the suppression of the Prague spring. He did see however how Lenin had dealt with this situation in his day when it was necessary to adopt NEP and have the party direct the economic development using capitalist methods. The role of the actual Soviets was curtailed. And Lukács wondered if in his day mass participation in Soviets was still relevant. They had been sidelined and practically dormant under the rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy. It is this bureaucracy, partially reformed by Khrushchev but still the dominant force throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which had to be overcome if the masses were to participate in the governing of their own socialist societies. Lukács said the bureaucracy had to be removed somehow if the masses were to participate in the democratic running of socialism. Since any independent questioning of the system by individuals or groups of workers were immediately persecuted, underground groups began to form to discuss how the system could be improved. It should be noted that anti-socialist elements formed during the Cold War could take advantage of this. How to change the bathwater without throwing the baby out was the problem.
7.25 During the revolution the masses became involved in active political agitation and planning and participation in the struggle to overthrow capital and bring about the Soviet state. However, after the Civil War, when it was now necessary to create an industrial economy, the times called for obedience to the bureaucracy and central planning and so the masses were encouraged simply to follow the orders handed down from the communist leadership. This was a historical necessity but it accustomed the people to passivity when it came to becoming involved in drawing up the plans for participation and creativeness in the new society Lenin had talked about habituation as one of the characteristics of people’s development. The masses had become habituated to political participation during the revolution and now they had become habituated to not participating in the real political aspects of rulership in the new society. The style of the bureaucracy was to rule the country without mass participation but with mass obedience. This was the result of Stalin’s major concern with the correct tactics to adopt for specific problems. Once the system was set up it became self perpetuating and this was the problem. How to bring about a more democratic system now that the situation had changed and the backward country was now industrially advanced and no longer needed the type of bureaucracy that had been necessary for Stalin to create? I must emphasize ‘Stalin’ is just shorthand for the Soviet party, its leaders, and historical necessity at any given time during the construction of the modern economy. It’s ridiculous to either blame or credit one man for the historical situation that occurred.
7.26 Here Lukács tries to characterize the types of human praxis and human personalities determined by the social conditions pertaining to revolution and socialism. He thinks the great days of the heroic individual are over, that is the days of the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Great heroic personalities were not created in today’s world of the 1960s. We can have more standardized personalities dedicated to socialism. I fear that Lukas has in mind the socialist personalities being created in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We certainly had heroic personalities in Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, although technically Che was a bit adventuristic, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh. The Eastern European types were infected with bureaucratism and what was needed was a type that was pro socialist and pro Marxist but in an environment where honest disagreement and the loyal opposition to what may be erroneous policies was encouraged. He is really talking about the need for party discipline but not the type of party discipline that represses real discussions and debates and democratic participation by the members. This is what he concludes:‘’There is a discipline that does not allow criticism and improvement, and this is only slavish obedience. But there is a discipline that incorporates participation, engagement, self correction and abolition and this is indispensable for any political movement.’’
7.27 There is another kind of praxis that can occur under socialism. This is where an individual uses the system for their personal aggrandizement and benefit by being a supporter of the system and of socialism. This this type of praxis is analogous to bourgeois individualism and those bourgeois who play the system just to benefit themselves. Under socialism it is impossible for people to increase their wealth and well-being by means of exploiting the labor of others. But the psychological attitude of trying to get your own out of the system is similar. But there is no comparison to what goes on under a bourgeois system. There we find the rampant exploitation of human beings, the theft of their labor power, and the resulting social creation of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment which the system replicates in order for the successful bourgeois to live the life of plenty. Under socialism there can be abuses or individuals in power can take advantage of loop holes and perks in their position to attain higher status and better remuneration. This does not however result in exploitation of other people’s labor power. While this phenomenon is present, Lukács says the vast majority of people under socialism are conscientious workers in a system that benefits all. The problem is they are politically passive due to the overly powerful bureaucracy that was set up to supervise them.
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7.28. The purpose is to describe the sociological conditioning associated with the type of socialist construction carried out under Stalin. It’s important to note that all bourgeois criticisms of socialism are rejected and the criticisms Lucács will discuss are unique to the socialist system. This system has actually abolished the abilities of humans to live by exploitation of other humans. All criticisms leveled by the bourgeoisie about the return to capitalism or state capitalism or any type of degeneration into bourgeois economic conditions are out of order. The economic relations of people under socialism is qualitatively different from those in class society. Lukács seems to be implying that the Soviet Union etc were classless societies. To the extent that the bourgeoisie had been removed from power and functionally didn’t exist, they were. What had happened. according to Lukács, was that the exploitation of man by man was impossible in the Soviet Union in the eastern Communist countries but the political System was not able to create a real socialist democracy. This is what allows bourgeois societies to critique the Soviet Union as not being socialist. The fact is, however, all of the objective economic requirements for social democracy are present in the socialist economy and, Lukács, says it is the duty of the people of the socialist world to concentrate on bringing forth these democratic tendencies and finally establish a truly socialist democratic state. Unfortunately Khrushchev wasn’t able to do that though he tried. Leonid Brezhnev was afraid this tendency might get out of control and threaten the bureaucracy and so the era of stagnation set in. Lucács did not live to see that it wasn’t socialist democracy that resulted from Soviet socialism, it was Putin. This was the historical destiny dictated by the dialectic of Stalinism.
7.29 here Lukács proposes a paradox. Stalin actually created the economic basis of socialism for the Kingdom of Freedom, but the same system that made it possible also threw up barriers that made it impossible. Bourgeois states have the same problem. The United States Declaration of Independence said we are fighting for Life liberty in the Pursuit of Happiness and the Pledge of Allegiance says our country is one that stands for Liberty and Justice for All. Yet the laws that we have made certainly prevent this. There’s no liberty and justice for all as we all know. The rich and the poor are not equally treated by the legal system. As for the pursuit of happiness, the laws put up many barriers against transgender people, gay people, immigrants, racial minorities, women, the mentally ill, native Americans, and other subsets of Americans that impact their daily lives and keep them in poverty and deprive them of any real hope of a meaningful pursuit of happiness. Yet most Americans think our country is really the best in providing liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So many communists thought the socialism manifested under Stalin didn’t have any real problems. As far as the bourgeoisie go, Marx said it “allows every man to find in his fellow men not the realization but the barrier to his own freedom.” This is what the fight over DEI is all about.
7.30 To properly understand Marx’s respect for some of the great pre-Marxist philosophers one has to understand how their philosophies reflected the development of capitalism in their day. Lukács mentions Hobbes, the Marquis de Sade, and Kant (he doesn’t mention the greatest all, Spinoza), as examples here. Hobbes speaks of “the war of all against all” as characterizing the pre-societal state of nature that humans lived in—but this was just a reflection of the actual condition of living in the capitalist world in Hobbes day. De Sade’s writings about women and sex, that women are just sex objects for men and ought to be their sex slaves as their only function is to serve men, was just an extreme projection of the relations been the classes in French society before the Revolution. Kant’s definition of marriage is based on the business ethics of capitalism: marriage is a contract between a man and a woman for the exclusive use of each other’s sexual organs. Kant’s definition has been expanded a bit in our day, but nobody pays or paid much attention to it then or now.
7.31 The purpose of this paragraph is to emphasize one of the most important goals that the transition to socialism will achieve. The socialist revolution involves the transition from a lower socioeconomic system of humanity to a higher one. The new one will, for the first time, allow humanity to achieve its ultimate potential, the true humanization of humanity. This entirely new social formation will create a new type of socialist human: a humanity to which all the previous versions of humanity will appear as barbarisms. Well, sad to say, the new socialist human didn’t appear in the Soviet Union or any of the eastern socialist systems, nor is this type of human likely to appear in countries trying to build socialism on the basis of mixed economies with a significant capitalist component. However once they achieve the developmental level that allows them to transition to a genuine market free, capitalist free, socialist economic and social foundation for their societies, there is no reason why this vision of humanity put forth by Lukács, based on the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin, should not began to appear.
7.32. There is a big difference between the transition from feudalism to capitalism and from capitalism to socialism. The relation of workers to the means of production and the division of labor under the feudal guild system was disrupted by the revolutionary changes instituted by capitalism with respect to the division of labor and the relation of workers to their own process of working.
7.33 The transition from feudalism to capitalism was a transition from one type of exploitative society to another type of exploitative society, albeit one on a higher level of economic development of the means of production. The social relations of production under socialism will eliminate the exploitive use of the means of production. This applies social changes, but with regard to technological changes the story is different. The development of technology has its own laws related to its evolution and development distinct from those of the social relations of production. The technology involved for example in the production of steel or automobiles will be the same under capitalism or socialism although the social relations regarding the creation of value and exploitation or non-exploitation will be totally different. Ideology is the product of the social relations. Lenin said that socialism was based on economic changes reflected in ideology but not by economic changes alone. Ideology is a reflection in the superstructure of class conflict and the struggle over the means of production and the creation of social wealth. The ideology of socialism is a reflection in the superstructure of the objective social class struggle going on in capitalism. Any effective ideology must be ‘’grounded within the objective social existent.’’
7.34 Both objective and subjective factors are involved in every historical transition. In the transition from capitalism to socialism objective economic laws will be at work both in the economy and in the development of technology. This transition will not automatically result in socialism evolving into communism. It will however determine the activity objectively of the humans involved in the transition. But they will need to subjectively direct the transition to socialist ends of equality and the end of exploitation. The new economic and technological world must be directed towards the end of human equality. It will have the objective ability to do so but it won’t do it without that subjective guidance. The subjective guidance will also result in the objective economic technological development reinforcing as freed back the subjective end of equality.”The objective must react on men so they become capable of realizing themselves as the genuine being of the species.”
7.35 in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels declare capitalism is the last social formation in history based on exploitation. Socialism will replace capitalism. Lukács says both Lassalle and Stalin put forth erroneous definitions of socialism. Lassalle said socialism equals “full compensation for labor.” Stalin’s mistake was to claim socialism amounted to the abolition of surplus labor. Lukács says both these definitions give the impression workers get 100% of the value they produce returned to them. But this isn’t true. They create all the social wealth but some of it will have to be taken by the state as long as it exists under socialism, for purposes of reinvestment, maintenance, research and development, and a general consumption fund to pay for education. medical care. pensions etc.. Only in this sense that surplus value is not being diverted to private interests can we think of the workers getting 100% back of the value they create. The humanization of labor power will be manifested under socialism when the subjective needs of the population will replace capitalism’s need for profits and accumulation to expand production to maintain competitive advantages and increase profits. Under capitalism the objective needs of the economic system dictates to the workers how they must engage with the means of production. Under socialism the subjective needs of the workers will dictate to the means of production how they will be engaged with by the workers. “ Under socialism, the subjective rules the objective.”
7.36 With the means of production under human control, rather than vice vera, Lukács says it is now possible to create ‘’ a higher form of humanity.’’ This is the goal of socialism! The Soviets in the 1930s, spoke or creating the “new socialist man’’ by means of social engineering. But a higher form of humanity is impossible without a planned socialist economy [a mixed economy won’t do]. This teleological result won’t result from willpower alone—it requires ‘’ the requisite economic-objective level of productivity.’’
7.37 Socialist praxis plus central planning will bring about the first truly human society but it will not be automatic. The economy will be advanced but its humanization will have to be introduced by means of human conscious decision. As Lukács points out, Lenin set forth the ideas that socialization will have to be introduced from the outside [the role off the CP] to enter the consciousness of the producers of the new society. Lucas says this is the’’ specific function of socialist democracy.’’ There have been three attempts to introduce this type of democracy: 1871 [the Paris commune], 1905 [first attempted revolution in Russia], in 1917 [ the Bolshevik seizure of Power]. The first two attempts were defeated by the bourgeoisie. The the 1917 attempt saw the creation of the mass popular widespread creation of Soviets but in Lenin’s last year’s ‘’atrophy and fragmentation’’ befell the Soviet movement and “the ever irresistible advance of bureaucracy” replaced the rule by the Soviets. The reason for this, Lukács seems to indicate, was due to Stalin but was this a personal failing or was this the historical necessity, the Zeitgeist of the revolution, due to the backwardness of Russia and the necessity to industrialize as quickly as possible?
7.38 It’s been 50 years or more since Lukás discussed the renewal of socialist democracy in the eastern communist world. HIs discussion is moot, since that world no longer exists. However there is still an international communist movement which has popular support and is struggling to once again attain state power. Therefore it behoves us to consider his suggestions so that any new movement doesn’t repeat the errors of the past. So I have updated Lukács discussion. Today the problem is ‘’ how can Marxism be reconstructed?’’ We are in a new historical environment. We can’t go back to the Soviets, we can’t relive the revolutionary moment of 1917, so we are pretty much on our own. The petrified Communism of the Stalin era does not relate to any contemporary movements that have any hope of success. We must reformulate Marxism in terms of today’s social realities. This will not be easy and many mistakes will be made but it is only by praxis that we can learn and adjust our tactics and our theories to contemporary realities. Lukács gave no specific answers to these problems but only laid out the most general themes of what had to be done. The same is done here in this update. Following Lenin, we must still be the vanguard, we must still be the ones to inject socialist class consciousness into the oppressed masses and the working class. Lenin said we are confronted by a matrix of social forces and while the working class is primary we must engage all the social forces that are at work in our society. Intersectionality is not a Marxist term but nevertheless it captures what Lenin had in mind. No oppressed group can end their oppression with capitalism in place. Marxism, therefore, must expand the working class consciousness to all oppressed sections and groups in society. This was Lenin’s plan that got lost in the rush to industrialize and to fight fascism as an existential threat to any type of socialism. Lenin got this methodology from Marx and Engels and so we must return to their original theoretical contributions and praxis. The renaissance of Marxism depends on the correct understanding of the objective social conditions confronting us today.
7.39 Another moot paragraph, at least as far as reforming the no longer ‘’ existing socialism’’ of the Soviet block. Nevertheless, Lukács raised some interesting problems in his criticism of how Stalin deformed Leninism. He gives three examples. First—by not updating the new developments in capitalism since Lenin wrote his book on imperialism the Soviet analysis of contemporary events was based on outdated information. Second— Stalin’s deleting of the concept of the Asiatic mode of production from Marx’s scheme of historical development made it impossible to have accurate understanding of the developments in Asia, especially in China. This concept, by the way, is still being debated. Marx thought it was the major mode production outside of the classical Western world for which he devised the sequence slavery, feudalism, capitalism, then, hopefully, socialism. Third, the theory that class struggle intensified after the establishment of socialism was a complete falsification used to justify Stalin’s crackdown on threats to his continued leadership. The 20th party Congress rejected this third Stalinist thesis. Well maybe they shouldn’t have since capitalist counter-revolution not only took over the party but destroyed the entire Soviet social system in eastern Europe. At any rate, as we build a 21st century socialist movement based on the major insights of Mark, Engles and Lenin adapted, or as we try to adapt, to contemporary circumstances, these comments by Lukács will still be found useful to debate.
7.40 Lukács says he doesn’t have space to list all of Stalin’s distortions of Leninism so he is going to concentrate on just one. Because it is crucially important for any discussion of socialist democracy he will concentrate on Lenin’s views on the self-determination of nations. Succinctly put, it was that there was no exception to the right of nations to demand self -determination. This was an extension of the views of Marx and Engels.
7.41 Lukács says the revival of Marxism will require an honest study of the past and will involve a lot of criticism and self-criticism because only discovering the errors of the past will prevent their future recurrence. Over half a century has passed since Lukács proposed a Renaissance of Marxism. So we can assume all the soul-searching and analysis he called for has pretty much been done. At at least today Marxists should have some idea of the minimum requirements for a revolutionary movement to consider itself in the Marxist tradition. Readers will have to decide for themselves how much work is still required.
7. 42. Lenin realized that Marx and Engles didn’t explain exactly how socialist democracy was going to work. It doesn’t seem that it will just spontaneously come into existence. It will have to be introduced consciously by the policies of a Communist Party. Lenin had already discussed how revolutionary class consciousness had to be introduced into the working class from the outside. Today we find society has many disconnected social movements progressive and reactionary and there are different groups calling themselves Socialist, Marxist or Communist. How do how do we identify a group with an objectively correct reflection of reality as opposed to groups with subjective and therefore incorrect reflections of objective reality. This is a great problem of praxis, especially when every group thinks it has the correct reflection and all the others are incorrect. What should we look for? Perhaps the Communist Manifesto will tell us. The role, it says, of Communists is that it “ represented the general interests of the entire proletariat—continuously represented the interests of the entire movement.’’ The real CP is the one which recognizes all the different struggles against capitalism, whatever levels of consciousness they happen to have at the time, and supports those struggles and tries to provide leadership that will unite them all into one great movement for socialism. This is the Vanguard role. It doesn’t attack and belittle other progressive groups trying to change the system but gives them positive comradely criticisms and leads by example. If done properly objective reality will eventually enlighten them as they are not the enemy but fellow travelers at different way stations along the road to socialism.
7.43 This paragraph is moot considering the communist parties Lukács refers to basically don’t exist anymore or are so changed that they are not recognizable. The point he made was that the Renaissance of Marxism could not take place without restructuring the communist parties so that they reflected real inner party democracy. He rejected the model of bourgeois parliamentary democracy that some critics were recommending for the communist parties—he stressed the fact that no bourgeois political parties in the parliamentary systems actually practice inter-party democracy themselves.
7.44 Lenin’s Theory of Habituation—since the communist parties which Lukács sought to reform are basically extinct the discussion in this paragraph relates to any future communist parties that take power and to those already in power who aren’t following Lukács’ program. One of the most important reforms must be a separation between the responsibilities of the party and the state. Socialist society must eliminate all traces of the values and motivations of class society. Lenin thought we had to create every day life so that it reinforces socialist humanism and the strengthening of our original species being. Only after bringing up the population with the new values of socialist humanism to the point where these values are ingrained and habit-forming so that this habituation will make people automatically thinking in terms of the collective welfare can the transition to communism be ensured. One of the greatest problems is the pursuit of prestige consumption. This type of consumption was widespread in Lukács day in communist societies. Prestige consumption motivated citizens to think in terms of their individual benefits more than the collective. This was left over bourgeois capitalist habituation. The population must take an active fart in making all of the political decisions that have formally been done by a party elite and handed down from above.This is the only way the new values will become habitual. Not only will the masses participate in the arena of political life but also in the collective social life of the new society.
7.45 The collapse of capitalism? Our time is in some ways analogous to Lucács’ 50 years ago. Then people were pointing out how capitalism was weakening and it was even possible that it would soon collapse. The same idea was propagated in the generation of the 30s as well. But it’s the real objective changes in the conditions of society not just perceived changes apparent on the surface that must take place before we can seriously consider one social system about to be replaced by another. In fact the European socialist system collapsed not capitalism. We won’t see a change like that unless we find ourselves in conditions that radically separate ‘’ past ideas from present conscious behavior.’’ Lukács is presenting us with a chicken or the egg situation as he says: “To change man it is first necessary to change Society.” In the past people engaged in incremental struggles that bit by bit created a more progressive world with regard to overall human welfare or at least the consciousness of the need for it. There would be no hope for really human history in the future if these struggles in the past had not taken place.They have been motored by utopian dreams and a false consciousness nevertheless without these experiments there would be no hope for a future victory of communism.
7.46 In the long history of humanity there have been many societies, primitive or advanced, religious ideas and philosophies, that have claimed they were advancing the cause of humanity. Lukács says this history is very fragmented and we cannot pass judgment on any of these attempts without realizing we have incomplete knowledge of how many of them would have turned out. Nevertheless, humans make human history and no one else. The humans of the present day in advanced societies must study Marxism scientifically for we are claiming the world capitalist system has produced the highest use of the means of production to build an exploitative economy which must be replaced by socialism as the only system capable of restoring to humanity it’s true species being. Marxist socialist democracy is the sole foundation on which the ultimate transition to humanity’s destiny can be built.
7. 47. I will try to make sense of the ideas in this paragraph since the collapse of European socialism. Reanimating the USSR with the spirit of the original soviets in order to combat Stalinist hyper bureaucratization and the perils of positivism found in bourgeois democracy it’s no longer an option. The rebirth of socialist democracy failed to develop and the Eastern European socialist camp along with the Soviet Union perished. Nevertheless the international capitalist system is still threatening the future of humanity with its never ending wars, economic destruction of the environment, and increasingly returning to fascism to solve its economic and social problems. The creation of socialist democratic systems is humanity’s only hope for survival in a civilized manner and not simply as throwback to primitive pre-capitalist systems after the collapse of the present international economic arrangement. It is possible that a modus vivendi can be worked out between the rising power symbolized by the major advances of Chinese socialism and the awakening demand of the underdeveloped peoples of the world for freedom and democracy guided by socialist rather than capitalist tutelage. It is up to the people and what’s left of rationality in the bourgeois elite of the developed capitalist world to develop a regime of peaceful coexistence with the multi-polarity represented by the social forces that are rising against the uni-polar system of globalization. The ruling capitalist elites will try to incorporate the rising opposition to their rule by offering minimal concessions and attempting to co-op progressive leadership of the masses. The present day communist parties and Marxist parties, therefore, have inherited the task of developing the viable socialist democratic alternative that Lukács envisioned for the socialist world of his day but which failed to materialize.
7.48 This paragraph discusses the two stages Lukács envisioned for the reform of Marxism. Since these reforms were supposed to take place in the existing socialist countries they are only of historic interest now. Nevertheless, they can be resuscitated as the basis for current struggles to reinvigorate the world revolutionary movement. First, we have to look at what is living and dead in the past history of Marxism. Unfortunately, this major research project is still in the process of trying to figure out what these elements are. The habituation process described in the previous paragraph will have to begin with the current struggles to rebuild Marxism and not wait to be introduced in an already existing socialist economy. This can be done because we are now aware of its necessity which we were not previously. This ideal of Lenin, which was lost in the shuffle in the past, can now be an essential part of the renaissance of Marxism. This habituation was the first stage in Lukács’ reform plan. The second stage consisted in reforming the official state led communist parties by regenerating mass participation in a new soviet style of democratic socialism. Those communist parties are long gone in the West. There are, in a Marxist sense, only five states left that are still on the road to socialism. The Marxist parties in the rest of the world have to figure out how to come to power and liberate humanity from the inhuman capitalist system. Lukács’ discussion of the problems facing existing socialist states is now moot, but for the existing Marxist parties of today it is an important contribution to aid us in the reconstruction of Marxism.
7.49 History is not immobile but dynamic. In the 1960s Lukács said that dynamism had two forms. First, the inability of capitalism to solve its contradictions and stave off its decline. Second, the world communist movement was stagnating, at least in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union,and the need for a Marxist renaissance was being sensed. He quoted Marx,’’Humanity only sets itself those tasks which it can solve, for exactly stated humanity will continuously find that the tasks themselves only arise where the material conditions for their solution are already present or at least in the process of becoming.’’ For Lukács this meant the efforts to preserve the Stalinist order was futile. He was correct about that. However, there was no Renaissance of Marxism that came to the rescue of the socialist world. Humanity, evidently, hadn’t said itself that task in Lukács day. The question is has it been set in our world today, or are we waiting for Godot.
7.50. A break with the past. Lukács thought the time had come for a break with the past, by which he meant the politics of the communist countries which were still basically Stalinist—that is, top down administrative authoritarianism. There was a sense that this was necessary not only within the population in general but even in the party. The question was how to do it. The socialist world was stable enough to undertake such an internal reformation without the fear of any military intervention by the Western powers. One problem is, the sympathy of the working people and Western intellectuals with the presently existing communist world was not nearly as strong as it had been in 1917. Then the masses and intellectuals throughout the world identified with the Russian Revolution as they saw themselves represented by the Russian workers struggling to end oppression and the slaughter of World War I. The Moscow trials and the Cold War had eroded the popularity of the revolution. Also, the economic advance of the West, the higher living standards, and the more developed technology and availability of consumer goods contributed to the negative opinion held by many in the West regarding communism. Despite the problems of Stalinism, people living in communism had a different mentality than those under capitalism. They still believed that their system was working to advance humanity and bring about a future Society free of exploitation. They believed presently existing socialism could have a Marx’s renaissance and overcome whatever problems remained from the Stalinist era. This was a belief the humanity could be perfected and evolve in such a way because it’s true species being could finally become a reality. Lukács says, “The spirit of capitalism is opposed to this spiritual quest.” Lukács thought as the contradictions of capitalism eventually broke down the system and the masses realized and rejected it’s exploitative and inhumane nature they would once again feel sympathy and identify with the Renaissance of Marxism going on in the communist world. As we know, this moment passed and the Marxist Renaissance failed to materialize. It is up to present day socialists to revive it.
7.51 Lukács is a little too optimistic about the possibilities of communist parties reforming themselves. He thinks the influence of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held in 1956 is responsible for a consciousness throughout the communist world of the need for a more democratic constitution of the state. This consciousness is inchoate. The official communist parties don’t see the need to reform at least not while capitalism and imperialism are still in power. Lukács admits imperialism is imperialism and will only be overth rowen by a revolutionary social democratic movement. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union has achieved nuclear equality with US imperialism and no longer has to worry about a military intervention or a Third World war. This means, for Lukács, the real Renaissance of Marxism can be undertaken in the present circumstances. The mentality of Stalinism is the main enemy internally. The authorities consider any descent not the result of a loyal opposition but of enemies of the people or agents of imperialism and move to clamp it down. This is a modified version of the great purge trials of the 30s without the terrorist violence. So this is the struggle between Leninism, real people’s democracy, and Stalinism. Unfortunately. the Leninist revival didn’t really get under way, the dissident movement went in the direction of reforms based on Western European and American capitalist models. The old guard stayed in power until it was removed by counterrevolution from within its own ranks from those who had lost faith in Marxism completely.
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